There was a nostalgia-fest among digital music execs on Twitter last night after news broke that AOL is shutting down the Winamp music service, including its website and media players. “Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date,” explained a note on the site. Why the nostalgia? Winamp has been around for 15 years, making it one of the first popular players in the pre-iTunes digital music era. It was acquired by AOL in 1999 alongside music portal Spinner in a deal valued at $400m for the pair. “Combining these leading Internet music brands with the audience reach of our brands will lift music online to the next level of popularity,” said AOL president Bob Pittman at the time. However, AOL closed Spinner earlier this year too (Bulletin, 29-Apr-13), with Winamp now following it into the history books.
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Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…