In 1997, Justin Frankel, a programmer from Sedona, Arizona, founded Nullsoft, Inc in his home town. The company's name is a parody of Microsoft.[1]Mike the Llama is the company's mascot.[a] The company launched the media player Winamp in 1997, developed by Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev. It was the second real-time MP3 player for Windows, following WinPlay3.[2]
According to Bonnie Burton, then editor of the website Winamp.com, 2001 was a period of heightened tension between the Nullsoft staff and upper management, because of Frankel's uncompromising views about file-sharing. He had developed Gnutella in 2000 and released it using company infrastructure.[5][6] Ars Technica also noted that AOL failed to effectively monetize or find a larger audience for Winamp.[7] Nullsoft's San Francisco offices were closed in December 2003, with a near-concurrent departure of Frankel and the original Winamp development team.[1][3] In 2013, some AOL Music sites were shut down and others sold to Townsquare Media.[8][9][10]
In November 2013, an unofficial report surfaced that Microsoft was in talks with AOL to acquire Nullsoft.[11] On January 14, 2014, it was officially announced that Belgian online radio aggregator Radionomy had bought Winamp and Shoutcast, formerly owned by Nullsoft. No financial details were publicly announced.[12][13]
Winamp is a media player released by Nullsoft in April 1997. By 1999, it was downloaded by 15 million people.[1] The company released several new versions of the Winamp player and grew its monthly unique subscriber base to 60 million users by late 2004.[3] Winamp was discontinued by Nullsoft around 2013.[14] New versions of Winamp, which started releasing in 2023, are by a different developer named Llama Group.[15]
In later years, their open source installer system, the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS) became an alternative to commercial products like InstallShield.[16]
Other
Nullsoft's developments after acquisition included the Nullsoft Streaming Video (NSV) format, which was intended to stream media that used any audio or video codec. In 2002, the press reported a technology called Ultravox being developed by Nullsoft.[17] The company also created the peer-to-peer networks Gnutella and WASTE.[1] Although AOL tried to limit the distribution of Gnutella and WASTE, the Ultravox technology was reportedly used for some AOL radio services in 2003.[18] A service called Nullsoft Television was announced in 2003 using NSV.[19]
Notes
^this is frequently referred to in promotional material (especially for Winamp) citing llamas. Frankel introduced the llama in Winamp's startup sound clip, inspired by the lyrics of Wesley Willis: "Winamp, it really whips the llama's ass!"[1]
