A second coming?
15 years after its founding, all of Winamp’s original employees are long gone (most have moved on to other positions in Silicon Valley, largely in the tech and music sectors) and the product has now existed longer without Frankel than with him. Its user base continues to stagnate as competitors like Rdio, Spotify, and Pandora—to say nothing of iTunes, which last year sold its 15 billionth song—continue to thrive.
But Geno Yoham, Winamp’s general director since October 2008, argues that Winamp will continue to do well as a media player, particularly in emerging markets where Apple hasn’t penetrated as well.
“iTunes is number one, and we’re number two,” he said. “There’s a lot of value in the Winamp brand, the media player that’s on your side.”
Winamp says that it has around 30 million users worldwide currently (a figured based on comScore Web traffic analysis), with less than one million in the United States. The company is also starting to target specific platforms (read: Android) rather than specific markets. Winamp reports that since the Android launch of Winamp in October 2010, it has seen over 19 million installs. Could Winamp rise once more?
“We’re thinking about [buying Winamp] again,” said Josh Felser, the former Spinner executive and current venture capitalist, who said he and other investors also tried to buy Winamp from AOL in 2003. He’s still in love with the idea of Winamp, and with the community it spawned, and believes that someone could still capitalize on all that potential.
“Winamp had the start of something social in music,” he said, dismissing the music sharing that Spotify is now doing on Facebook. “That’s just seeing what people are listening to. It doesn’t feel right.”
“[Winamp] had a very distinct, edgy, tech-savvy community, and that’s a valuable community to lots of people. That would be a big thing to understand. What are the set of features that we can attach to it to make it become more relevant again? I don’t have it. I’d have to get serious about that.”
But, he admitted, no significant steps have been taken in terms of talking with AOL about a possible acquisition.
“Although the idea of starting with that basis [of an existing community and a history] is exciting,” he said with a grin, “I haven’t given it more than five minutes thought.”
