AOL is finalizing negotiations to sell off Winamp and Shoutcast in a deal that would allow both products to live on, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions.
The company (which owns TechCrunch) announced last month that as of December 20, Winamp web services would shut down and that the desktop version of the video and music player would no longer be available for download.
Shortly afterward, TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden reported that Microsoft was in talks to buy both Winamp and Shoutcast, another media streaming service that AOL owns through its acquisition of Nullsoft way back in 1999.
My source did not identify the potential buyer, but they said the deal was close enough that they’re “confident” that an agreement will be reached. Also, they said they don’t believe the previously announced shutdown would happen on Dec. 20 — while these negotiations are progressing, I’m guessing it’s in the interest of both parties to keep the services up and running.
An AOL spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
As we noted in our previous coverage, the products haven’t entirely languished under AOL — for example, Winamp Sync for Mac launched two years ago — but it hasn’t exactly seemed like a big priority. Nonetheless, Winamp in particular has a certain nostalgic appeal for people of the right age (i.e., me) and someone (Microsoft?) thinks there’s still some value here.
[image via Wikipedia]
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