Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the consolidation-is-the-name-of-the-game dept.
kriston writes "AOL
has just acquired the MP3[?] player WinAmp, the Spinner Networks
online music service, and SHOUTcast streaming audio
software." Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor.
AOL gobbles and the masses pay for the pleasure
by
tomwhore
·
· Score: 3
[ed note. this one rambles a bit, but stick with me, it has a payoff]
The simple fact is this...Much of the value systems found in folk who care about the net is absent from the mainstream masses who are now the majority of the net.
But who the hell wants to be mainstream? If your looking at being a pseudo geek, some modern day wanabe who wears the right clothes, speaks the right speak and uses all the Hip Appz the you are doomed to loose. You will always be exposed for the utter lamer you are.
Things were a bit different when the implemntation of advancement was in the hands( wether by procalim,dictate, or by stealing them) of the people doing the grunt work of building the code. Back then you could be a vlaue to the growth or a bystander to it or a particpant in its day in day out evolution in one of a million ways.
Now its suits, roots for hire, and loots. Money talk and jihads are nice PR. People feel that by using the right appz they are "netSavy" or tht by being seen reading the right mags they will be "in". Dont worry that you cant understand, or even try to , 3/4 of the Linux Journal you walk around the office with. Dont worry that if push came to shove you wouldnt be able to get your rig back up and running without a whinny call to Tech Support.
Which lead us to the point, that being about Winamp being snatched up by AOL.
SO WHAT.
If you are on/. and are the salve of one particular brand name, you are doomed to loose. If you are so weak as to let other people force you to use softs and apps not of your liking, and let yourself be trapped in a closed system hell, then you are doomed to loose.
When winamp came up it was heralded as the great saviour of the music distro sceen, and it was. It had its glory and is now moving to another phase. I say fucking great, congrats to the AZ boys and gals and I hope you save a little of the cash for your golden years.
To those that need to be on the bleedig edge of NonCorporate living its time to get a new mp3 player. BIG FUCKING DEAL. There are a whole slew of em and more comming out.
The folks at Nullsoft did thier thing, they got in the dirt and built something that was of use to the nets growth and use. Nothing can take that away from them. They did it, and if your gooing to belittle that fact, ask yourself...what have you done to make the net a better place?
Mirror time folks. The Nullsofties and folks like them deserve to take their creations and do what they want with them. Nothing is stopping the folks at Kjofol or Sonique or Icecast from taking up the ball. Nothing at all.
Its the net, and its a big old tumble of fun. If you cant stand the chaos, go get an AOL disk and enjoy the massmarket version of it; beacuse honey, its gonna be a bumpy ride and I dont want to be dealing with your getting sick everytime we hit some turbulence.
Onward folks and keep your eyes on the prize
-- Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
I wonder what the consequences will be for the lawsuit against MP3.com and Nullsoft? AOL certainly has very deep pockets, lots of lawyers, and the willingness to use them.
--
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
What makes other players better is, of course, relative to your point of view and needs.
K-Jofol - Supposedly the fastest mp3 player for windows. Great skins, great looking, lots of options. Free.
Sonique - Also great looking, with fun analyzers, and very well visually designed, as well as having pitch control and such things.
SoundPlay(for BeOS) - Aint the prettiest thing around, but it uses WinAmp skins, and has the best pitch control of any player - it can play anywhere from 400% to -400%. With the CDDA FS add-on, you can directly alter the pitch of music from a CD. Has options for crossfading. Comes with effects processors. New beta even features the beginning of a vocal removal option. Costs 12 bucks, but very much worth it for me.
CL-AMP(for BeOS) - Almost a winamp clone, but with crossfading and pitch control (but won't play backwards:) Easy interface. Your basic well-done mp3 player for BeOS.
Sound quality isn't that much of an issue, and reliability only varies slightly, but performance can be a little more important.
It's not that WinAmp was bad, but we have to switch now, and there are more feature-packed players out there.
In my mind, this calls into question some rather large industry alliances. Where does AOL officially stand with regard to Micros~1? Possibly more important, where does AOL stand with relation to the RIAA? Anyone have semi-detailed information on either of these?
To my knowledge, Micros~1 is signed on with the SDMI, which would put them on the side of the RIAA.
Hmmmmm...
With the impending release of Micros~1's new mp3-capable Media Player, AOL now owns (at least) two large (in terms of users) pieces of software that directly compete with Micro$oft. I'm curious to see what Microsoft's reaction to this will be, and even more curious about their current relations with AOL.
Despite my personal distaste (slight understatement) for AOL, unless they're up to something really senaky, I can see some very good things coming from their ownership of the most popular mp3 player in the world. At a bare minimum, this should result in more people using the mp3 format, which will hopefully bury the SDMI before they can even release it.
Does AOL really have this much balls? Do they dare stand opposed to both Micros~1 and the RIAA?
I can't wait to see how this one plays out:)
--
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing."
-Attorney General Janet Reno
Well, I think some people are bashing AOL in a knee-jerk type fashion. It seems we're calling a different company "The Next Microsoft" every day.
On the other hand, I don't exactly have the warm fuzzies. AOL's been picking up high profile netgadgets lately (Netscape, Instant Messenger {was this ICQ?}, now Shoutcast and WinAMP). I would guess that they are trying to corner the market on hip cybertools, so as too attract even more users to their network service.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with wanting to be popular, but AOL's current software practices leave a lot to be desired in the area of privacy, and forced advertising. These new aquisitions might turn out to be harmless party favours promoting the AOL name, or they might turn into trogan-horse like demographic harvesters. It'll probably be a little of both. I personally hate adware (even though it allows "free" services, I know) and hope that people develop marketing-free alternatives. Maybe I'll even be able to help:)
I don't know how serious they are about promoting open software either. They do seem to have left a good part of netscape/mozilla intact, but I'm still not convinced they really want to give anything back to the net without strings attached.
Now's a good time to check out the alternatives, namely Icecast, a free project under very active development which provides a Shoutcast-compatible streaming MP3 server, encoding client, directory server, live interaction tools, and more. My experiences with Icecast have been very productive -- IMO, it provides a much greater level of flexibility than the proprietary flavors (surprise, surprise)
Now if someone would just roll out a decent MP3 streaming client for Mac so I can ditch all these Real servers...
Having a huge force like AOL behind an MP3 company could actually be a good thing as it throws major big bucks MP3. I would love to see RIAA and AOL battle it out. -- Deepak Saxena 1999 - Year of the Penguin
--
Deepak Saxena
1999 - Year of the Penguin
Linux Demo Day '99 - http://www.linuxdemo.org
The community can kill two birds with one stone. Just find yourself a new MP3 player.
1) This will make small companies think twice about selling to a mindless corporation and, 2) This will make mindless corporations think twice about purchasing such a company if they think everyone will walk.
Well, looks like I'll be booting back into windows to take the bitch out. There are, btw, far better Mp3 players for windows - K-Jofol and Sonique come to mind. You can find links and resources on them at Skinz. Most of my Mp3s I play in BeOS, though, because of the added filesystem attributes for Mp3, and Soundplay, the greatest mp3 player ever.
AOL certainly has been making big strides in acquiring the leading competitors in different areas of computing: Netscape, ICQ, Winamp, etc. To me, this is definitely AOL becoming another internet/media giant (Microsoft comes to mind quickly as an example). I don't really trust either company, or companies similar to them, and frankly, this scares the Windows-using part of me; the Linux part of me just laughs nervously over these acquisitions.
However, I see a large difference in how AOL and Microsoft are becoming giants. Microsoft just drives different companines out of business, providing only their crappy programs as alternatives. AOL, on the other hand, just buys out the companies and (hopefully) allows them run themselves without any AOL intervention in the coding process. That software remains out there, perhaps even promoted by AOL, and it remains a viable competitor to the crap Microsoft and other similar monopolies throw out at us.
I'm not saying AOL is a good guy for buying out these companies; these buyouts are in the interest of AOL, not the companies. I personally hate AOL's services. But at least AOL doesn't crush them out of existence. The great software is still there, it's just AOL owns it.
I'm probably wrong on some points, this is just how I see from my user-end vantage. Right now I have Netscape and ICQ open, and I'm having absolutely no problems with them (even the fact that AOL owns them). As long as the software AOL buys out remains the same, in the short-run I have no problem with them buying companies out. The long-run impact is something I'm still thinking about, and I see both good and bad in it. It all depends on how ethical AOL will be (yeah right).
*Raising shields for return fire* =) If you're going to flame, make it a respectable argument, please.
Jack
-- Demona's Law - "User data expands to exceed available bandwidth."
("User data" being pr0n, mp3's, vob's,
Yes, AOL is a HUGE conglomerate, and it seems that they are only doing this because mp3s are so big lately, but.. (you know there had to be one) they also have alot of money, and sway in the internet world. This could be a good thing. More money, better development, and if AOL starts advertising this could mean that many many more people would potentialy be exposed to mp3s, and give it the boost it needs.
Its good in someways because the music companies are less likely to sue AOL who has bucks to defend MP3. Little indies don't have these resources and get bullied (look at the emulation makers..). MP3 has a strong corporate voice that can defend MP3 (and will after 400 million.)
AOL seems to be in a bit a strange position in terms of "Broadband"..
Cable modem users use cable ISPs (I doin't think they have choice")
DSL is just starting to become available, I don't know if you have ISP choice there. I know its connection less (ie you can't get a DSL connection dialled into anywhere, the line gets dropped at the phone company.)
I think the government is looking into equal access bills for ISPS, but thats another story.
If people want high speed access they may have to ditch AOL, so I think AOL is diversifying. They have the AOL.com site which is similar to Altavista/Yahoo/Netcenter. They also seem to paying big bucks for "Free or shareware" software to make sure they have a net precence.
What is this fuss all about ?
by
warmi
·
· Score: 3
I don't understand this "Ohs", jaws on the floor etc... I mean what's the big deal. AOL bought not WinAmp per se but its user base !!! It was the same with ICQ. I mean, come on , it would not be that hard for AOL to write their own MP3 player. It is users who are familiar with the product that count. And that's fine with me. WinAMP authors made lot of money - they deserved that. Everything works ok.
A lot of the messages responding to this (very strange) turn of events are basically saying "Oh, no, AOL is another monopoly." This, quite frankly, is NOT true. There are many, many things I dislike about AOL, and they are a very large company, but they are not a Monopoly, and while this turn of events is shocking, I don't consider it terribly dangerous. Here's why:
1. Monopolies must own a huge majority of the markets they control in order to truly be monopolies. As far as the Internet goes, I doubt very much that this is the case: while AOL may be one of the largest online services around, the sheer number of people on the internet, whether through large ISP's like GTE or BellSouth, or through local ISP's, keeps AOL from the Lion's share of marketshare. Also, since ISP's don't need to own most of the market to stay in business, I see little danger (at this point) of ISP's going belly up en masse and leaving us with only AOL and a few others.
2. WinAmp is a very popular MP3 player, but it's not the only one out there -- and if I recall correctly, it's currently being sued for illegally using a proprietary MP3 codec. There are plenty of MP3 players out there -- some freely available -- for people to use if AOL decides to hike up the price significantly.
3. IceCast is a free software implementation of AOL's purchase, so there seems little danger of that capability being denied from the world at large.
Because of those three points, it seems unlikely AOL's purchases will be any significant threat to their respective markets, so long as everyone is wary and keeps a close eye on AOL's future actions.
Besides that, they continued to support Mozilla after they bought Netscape, didn't they? That should be some encouragement...
-- Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
AOL to buy WinZip?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5
Anyone notice this little blurb on the Yahoo report?
"Nullsoft is the developer of Winamp, the leading branded MP3 player for Windows, and SHOUTcast, an MP3 streaming audio system. With 15 million total downloads, Winamp has an installed base of 5 million users and is the No. 2 most popular application on Download.com after ICQ, averaging more than 43,000 downloads daily."
From the desk of an AOL executive... Number 1: ICQ (acquired) Number 2: WinAmp (acquired) Number 3: WinZip Number 4: Netscape (acquired)
The results of last weeks top downloads at Download.com are listed above, in that order. Scary that AOL owns three of four, eh? I think so.... -"AOHell. The good old days"
Re:It's obvious...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3
...that AOL is not only trying to make everyone believe that it is the internet, but with acquisitions of buzz-technology, it certainly is moving forward to own important parts of it.
I wonder how long until they are called a monopoly, albeit it's not much of a danger until they buy, let's say, sendmail.org.
nullsoft was desperate for money due to the suit filed by Playmedia. When AOL offered to buy nullsoft the small company, they must have seen this as an opportunity to prevent losing this case (even though playmedia had virtually no case against them).
Nullsoft Founder and President Justin Frankel said: ``Working with America Online will let us globally extend the use of our technologies through its Internet brands. In addition, having access to America Online's
tremendous resources and infrastructure will let focus our efforts on what's really important: Making cool software.''
tremendous resources to pay lawyers to get playmedia off our backs . . .
maybe i'm reading between the lines, but it does make sense.
why would they get rid of Nitrane to replace it with that crappy decoder they use now unless they were scared?
Wow, I happen to know a number of people in the digital audio space, but this was not expected. I can tell you guys that there will be another absolutely jaw-dropping announcement in under a month, so brace yourself, because the industry is in for a ride.
The $400M seemed to be for both companies, no? I'm guessing that the vast majority of that went to Spinner.com, seeing as that A) Spinner was already traded and is a pretty considerably sized company and B) notice how Nullsoft is moving but nobody else is?
It's important to realize here that this does not mean that MP3s are going to become open. Everybody already knows about Icecast and FreeAmp, and AOL acquiring Nullsoft has (duh) nothing to do with the MP3 format as a whole. This is not about formats, it's about AOL acquiring media properties to be able to best serve its customers with a really neat, compelling multimedia experience. Go look at Wired Planet -- this is what I see AOL pulling off, but with a huge amount of music content.
I understand the anti-AOL sentiment. I, too, was there in the first part of this decade and felt the Internet shift when morons from Joe4422@AOL.COM started posting to sci.physics. But this may be part of an image shift, too. AOL isn't just a crappy service provider any more. They own a very hefty chunk of the world's software Intellectual Property now, including some very neat companies they picked up with their acquisition of Netscape. Give them some credit. They're a different company now, or are at least trying to be. And hey, I'd sure like to get bought out for a few million, vest, and then leave -- wouldn't you? David E. Weekly (dew, Think)
Slashdot Mirror
[ed note. this one rambles a bit, but stick with me, it has a payoff]
/. and are the salve of one particular brand name, you are doomed to loose. If you are so weak as to let other people force you to use softs and apps not of your liking, and let yourself be trapped in a closed system hell, then you are doomed to loose.
...what have you done to make the net a better place?
The simple fact is this...Much of the value systems found in folk who care about the net is absent from the mainstream masses who are now the majority of the net.
But who the hell wants to be mainstream? If your looking at being a pseudo geek, some modern day wanabe who wears the right clothes, speaks the right speak and uses all the Hip Appz the you are doomed to loose. You will always be exposed for the utter lamer you are.
Things were a bit different when the implemntation of advancement was in the hands( wether by procalim,dictate, or by stealing them) of the people doing the grunt work of building the code. Back then you could be a vlaue to the growth or a bystander to it or a particpant in its day in day out evolution in one of a million ways.
Now its suits, roots for hire, and loots. Money talk and jihads are nice PR. People feel that by using the right appz they are "netSavy" or tht by being seen reading the right mags they will be "in". Dont worry that you cant understand, or even try to , 3/4 of the Linux Journal you walk around the office with. Dont worry that if push came to shove you wouldnt be able to get your rig back up and running without a whinny call to Tech Support.
Which lead us to the point, that being about Winamp being snatched up by AOL.
SO WHAT.
If you are on
When winamp came up it was heralded as the great saviour of the music distro sceen, and it was. It had its glory and is now moving to another phase. I say fucking great, congrats to the AZ boys and gals and I hope you save a little of the cash for your golden years.
To those that need to be on the bleedig edge of NonCorporate living its time to get a new mp3 player. BIG FUCKING DEAL. There are a whole slew of em and more comming out.
The folks at Nullsoft did thier thing, they got in the dirt and built something that was of use to the nets growth and use. Nothing can take that away from them. They did it, and if your gooing to belittle that fact, ask yourself
Mirror time folks. The Nullsofties and folks like them deserve to take their creations and do what they want with them. Nothing is stopping the folks at Kjofol or Sonique or Icecast from taking up the ball. Nothing at all.
Its the net, and its a big old tumble of fun. If you cant stand the chaos, go get an AOL disk and enjoy the massmarket version of it; beacuse honey, its gonna be a bumpy ride and I dont want to be dealing with your getting sick everytime we hit some turbulence.
Onward folks and keep your eyes on the prize
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
I wonder what the consequences will be for the lawsuit against MP3.com and Nullsoft? AOL certainly has very deep pockets, lots of lawyers, and the willingness to use them.
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
What makes other players better is, of course, relative to your point of view and needs.
:) Easy interface. Your basic well-done mp3 player for BeOS.
K-Jofol - Supposedly the fastest mp3 player for windows. Great skins, great looking, lots of options. Free.
Sonique - Also great looking, with fun analyzers, and very well visually designed, as well as having pitch control and such things.
SoundPlay(for BeOS) - Aint the prettiest thing around, but it uses WinAmp skins, and has the best pitch control of any player - it can play anywhere from 400% to -400%. With the CDDA FS add-on, you can directly alter the pitch of music from a CD. Has options for crossfading. Comes with effects processors. New beta even features the beginning of a vocal removal option. Costs 12 bucks, but very much worth it for me.
CL-AMP(for BeOS) - Almost a winamp clone, but with crossfading and pitch control (but won't play backwards
Sound quality isn't that much of an issue, and reliability only varies slightly, but performance can be a little more important.
It's not that WinAmp was bad, but we have to switch now, and there are more feature-packed players out there.
-lx
This is very interesting.
:)
In my mind, this calls into question some rather large industry alliances. Where does AOL officially stand with regard to Micros~1? Possibly more important, where does AOL stand with relation to the RIAA? Anyone have semi-detailed information on either of these?
To my knowledge, Micros~1 is signed on with the SDMI, which would put them on the side of the RIAA.
Hmmmmm...
With the impending release of Micros~1's new mp3-capable Media Player, AOL now owns (at least) two large (in terms of users) pieces of software that directly compete with Micro$oft. I'm curious to see what Microsoft's reaction to this will be, and even more curious about their current relations with AOL.
Despite my personal distaste (slight understatement) for AOL, unless they're up to something really senaky, I can see some very good things coming from their ownership of the most popular mp3 player in the world. At a bare minimum, this should result in more people using the mp3 format, which will hopefully bury the SDMI before they can even release it.
Does AOL really have this much balls? Do they dare stand opposed to both Micros~1 and the RIAA?
I can't wait to see how this one plays out
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
Well, I think some people are bashing AOL in a knee-jerk type fashion. It seems we're calling a different company "The Next Microsoft" every day.
:)
On the other hand, I don't exactly have the warm fuzzies. AOL's been picking up high profile netgadgets lately (Netscape, Instant Messenger {was this ICQ?}, now Shoutcast and WinAMP). I would guess that they are trying to corner the market on hip cybertools, so as too attract even more users to their network service.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with wanting to be popular, but AOL's current software practices leave a lot to be desired in the area of privacy, and forced advertising. These new aquisitions might turn out to be harmless party favours promoting the AOL name, or they might turn into trogan-horse like demographic harvesters. It'll probably be a little of both. I personally hate adware (even though it allows "free" services, I know) and hope that people develop marketing-free alternatives. Maybe I'll even be able to help
I don't know how serious they are about promoting open software either. They do seem to have left a good part of netscape/mozilla intact, but I'm still not convinced they really want to give anything back to the net without strings attached.
Now if someone would just roll out a decent MP3 streaming client for Mac so I can ditch all these Real servers...
Having a huge force like AOL behind an MP3 company could actually be a good thing as it throws major big bucks MP3. I would love to see RIAA and AOL battle it out.
--
Deepak Saxena
1999 - Year of the Penguin
Deepak Saxena
1999 - Year of the Penguin
Linux Demo Day '99 - http://www.linuxdemo.org
The community can kill two birds with one stone. Just find yourself a new MP3 player.
1) This will make small companies think twice about selling to a mindless corporation and,
2) This will make mindless corporations think twice about purchasing such a company if they think everyone will walk.
This is our revolution and it's not for sale.
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Well, looks like I'll be booting back into windows to take the bitch out. There are, btw, far better Mp3 players for windows - K-Jofol and Sonique come to mind. You can find links and resources on them at Skinz. Most of my Mp3s I play in BeOS, though, because of the added filesystem attributes for Mp3, and Soundplay, the greatest mp3 player ever.
So long, Winamp, and thanks for all the skins...
-lx
AOL certainly has been making big strides in acquiring the leading competitors in different areas of computing: Netscape, ICQ, Winamp, etc. To me, this is definitely AOL becoming another internet/media giant (Microsoft comes to mind quickly as an example). I don't really trust either company, or companies similar to them, and frankly, this scares the Windows-using part of me; the Linux part of me just laughs nervously over these acquisitions.
However, I see a large difference in how AOL and Microsoft are becoming giants. Microsoft just drives different companines out of business, providing only their crappy programs as alternatives. AOL, on the other hand, just buys out the companies and (hopefully) allows them run themselves without any AOL intervention in the coding process. That software remains out there, perhaps even promoted by AOL, and it remains a viable competitor to the crap Microsoft and other similar monopolies throw out at us.
I'm not saying AOL is a good guy for buying out these companies; these buyouts are in the interest of AOL, not the companies. I personally hate AOL's services. But at least AOL doesn't crush them out of existence. The great software is still there, it's just AOL owns it.
I'm probably wrong on some points, this is just how I see from my user-end vantage. Right now I have Netscape and ICQ open, and I'm having absolutely no problems with them (even the fact that AOL owns them). As long as the software AOL buys out remains the same, in the short-run I have no problem with them buying companies out. The long-run impact is something I'm still thinking about, and I see both good and bad in it. It all depends on how ethical AOL will be (yeah right).
*Raising shields for return fire* =) If you're going to flame, make it a respectable argument, please.
Jack
Demona's Law - "User data expands to exceed available bandwidth." ("User data" being pr0n, mp3's, vob's,
This is not necesarily a bad thing...
Yes, AOL is a HUGE conglomerate, and it seems that they are only doing this because mp3s are so big lately, but.. (you know there had to be one) they also have alot of money, and sway in the internet world. This could be a good thing. More money, better development, and if AOL starts advertising this could mean that many many more people would potentialy be exposed to mp3s, and give it the boost it needs.
think about it.
Its good in someways because the music companies are less likely to sue AOL who has bucks to defend MP3. Little indies don't have these resources and get bullied (look at the emulation makers..). MP3 has a strong corporate voice that can defend MP3 (and will after 400 million.)
AOL seems to be in a bit a strange position in terms of "Broadband"..
Cable modem users use cable ISPs (I doin't think they have choice")
DSL is just starting to become available, I don't know if you have ISP choice there. I know its connection less (ie you can't get a DSL connection dialled into anywhere, the line gets dropped at the phone company.)
I think the government is looking into equal access bills for ISPS, but thats another story.
If people want high speed access they may have to ditch AOL, so I think AOL is diversifying. They have the AOL.com site which is similar to Altavista/Yahoo/Netcenter. They also seem to paying big bucks for "Free or shareware" software to make sure they have a net precence.
I don't understand this "Ohs", jaws on the floor etc
Everything works ok.
A lot of the messages responding to this (very strange) turn of events are basically saying "Oh, no, AOL is another monopoly." This, quite frankly, is NOT true. There are many, many things I dislike about AOL, and they are a very large company, but they are not a Monopoly, and while this turn of events is shocking, I don't consider it terribly dangerous. Here's why:
1. Monopolies must own a huge majority of the markets they control in order to truly be monopolies. As far as the Internet goes, I doubt very much that this is the case: while AOL may be one of the largest online services around, the sheer number of people on the internet, whether through large ISP's like GTE or BellSouth, or through local ISP's, keeps AOL from the Lion's share of marketshare. Also, since ISP's don't need to own most of the market to stay in business, I see little danger (at this point) of ISP's going belly up en masse and leaving us with only AOL and a few others.
2. WinAmp is a very popular MP3 player, but it's not the only one out there -- and if I recall correctly, it's currently being sued for illegally using a proprietary MP3 codec. There are plenty of MP3 players out there -- some freely available -- for people to use if AOL decides to hike up the price significantly.
3. IceCast is a free software implementation of AOL's purchase, so there seems little danger of that capability being denied from the world at large.
Because of those three points, it seems unlikely AOL's purchases will be any significant threat to their respective markets, so long as everyone is wary and keeps a close eye on AOL's future actions.
Besides that, they continued to support Mozilla after they bought Netscape, didn't they? That should be some encouragement...
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Anyone notice this little blurb on the Yahoo report?
"Nullsoft is the developer of Winamp, the leading branded MP3 player for Windows, and SHOUTcast, an MP3 streaming audio system. With 15 million total downloads, Winamp has an installed base of 5 million users and is the No. 2 most popular application on Download.com after ICQ, averaging more than 43,000 downloads daily."
From the desk of an AOL executive...
Number 1: ICQ (acquired)
Number 2: WinAmp (acquired)
Number 3: WinZip
Number 4: Netscape (acquired)
The results of last weeks top downloads at Download.com are listed above, in that order.
Scary that AOL owns three of four, eh? I think so....
-"AOHell. The good old days"
...that AOL is not only trying to make everyone believe that it is the internet, but with acquisitions of buzz-technology, it certainly is moving forward to own important parts of it.
I wonder how long until they are called a monopoly, albeit it's not much of a danger until they buy, let's say, sendmail.org.
Harry
well i think we all know why.
nullsoft was desperate for money due to the suit filed by Playmedia. When AOL offered to buy nullsoft the small company, they must have seen this as an opportunity to prevent losing this case (even though playmedia had virtually no case against them).
tremendous resources to pay lawyers to get playmedia off our backs . . .
maybe i'm reading between the lines, but it does make sense.
why would they get rid of Nitrane to replace it with that crappy decoder they use now unless they were scared?
The $400M seemed to be for both companies, no? I'm guessing that the vast majority of that went to Spinner.com, seeing as that A) Spinner was already traded and is a pretty considerably sized company and B) notice how Nullsoft is moving but nobody else is?
It's important to realize here that this does not mean that MP3s are going to become open. Everybody already knows about Icecast and FreeAmp, and AOL acquiring Nullsoft has (duh) nothing to do with the MP3 format as a whole. This is not about formats, it's about AOL acquiring media properties to be able to best serve its customers with a really neat, compelling multimedia experience. Go look at Wired Planet -- this is what I see AOL pulling off, but with a huge amount of music content.
I understand the anti-AOL sentiment. I, too, was there in the first part of this decade and felt the Internet shift when morons from Joe4422@AOL.COM started posting to sci.physics. But this may be part of an image shift, too. AOL isn't just a crappy service provider any more. They own a very hefty chunk of the world's software Intellectual Property now, including some very neat companies they picked up with their acquisition of Netscape. Give them some credit. They're a different company now, or are at least trying to be. And hey, I'd sure like to get bought out for a few million, vest, and then leave -- wouldn't you?
David E. Weekly (dew, Think)
David E. Weekly
Code / Think / Teach / Learn
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