Winamp: Vivendi becomes major Radionomy Stakeholder

The never ending Winamp story continues. AOL, the then-owner of Winamp announced back in 2013 that it would shut down the platform and software but changed those plans in early 2014 by selling its stake in Winamp to Radionomy instead.

While that was a positive development, things went quite shortly after the acquisition. Winamp is still available for download on the official project website but a new version has yet to be released by the new owner.

In fact, the last version released dates back to the end of 2013 when Winamp was still part of AOL.

It seems that Radionomy is still working on the application but development is slow considering that no new version has been released in nearly two years.

News broke on December 17, 2015 that Vivendi acquired a majority stake in Radionomy and thus also Winamp. The French multinational media company owns or has stakes in companies such as Dailymotion, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, Universal Music Group or the music streaming service Deezer.

Vivendi acquired 64.4% of the share capital of Radionomy Group for an undisclosed sum. The company mentions Winamp and Shoutcast explicitly in the press release as well as Radionomy's core service and TargetSpot, a digital audio advertising network.

Radionomy is best known as an Internet platform that allows digital radios to broadcast and monetize their programs on a global scale. The platform also offers FM radio stations unique tools to develop and monetize their digital presence. Today, over 57,000 radio stations are using these tools.

Radionomy Group owns the streaming technology SHOUTcast as well as the iconic Winamp audio player. It also controls TargetSpot, the first digital audio advertising network in the United States and in France.

Vivendi plans collaborations between the company's existing audio offerings and Radionomy's digital audio platform.

Vivendi’s capital investment in Radionomy Group will provide an impetus for its commercial development, supported by the promising outlooks for the advertising and digital audio markets all over the world. Radionomy is also very well positioned to capitalize on the expected evolution of the digital audio market towards targeted advertising, thanks to its technical tools and its partnerships.

It is unclear what this means for Winamp or Shoutcast, and whether the move will hinder or improve development of the services or their operation.

While Winamp is still a popular music player choice, music players such as AIMP have filled the gap for the most part that the player's hiatus has caused.

Now You: Do you think the development is good or bad for Winamp and Shoutcast?