Winamp needs no introduction. Many of us grew up with this MP3 player and its inexhaustible selection of compatible skins, but its current owners have been working on something new. The result is “Winamp Web”, an online music service that for the moment has a limited list of artists, radios, and podcasts. In other words, Winamp Web is shaping up to be an alternative to Spotify, and the question is: Is there room in the market for this?
Spotify and YouTube remain the two main options for accessing free music on the Internet. Beyond advertising and audio quality limits, the public is more than willing to accept certain limitations in free playback modes. Competing with these titans seems impossible, but recently we came across a novelty: Winamp. The classic MP3 player that accompanied us for decades has a new version, and it's a web application. Obviously, we decided to create an account on this brand new “Winamp Web” and explore its offering…
Winamp Web, or 'Winamp as a Service'
… which is quite limited.
The number of available artists can be counted on the fingers of one hand in certain categories, and most of the content is split between free radio stations and podcasts. The starting point is the Fanzone section, which, in addition to offering the trio Music-Radios-Podcasts, also allows us to search for material by genre, region, and language. Meanwhile, the My Creators section has a clear social component, and there we can follow specific artists, receiving all their news.
What about local music playback? Well... there is no support for that. Nor can we integrate MP3s stored in the cloud, so Winamp Web is currently a walled garden. The service also transmits a “beta feeling”, and we didn't take long to find the first 500 errors.
In short, Winamp Web is not what we expected... but we understand the change of strategy. The service needs to find a way to attract artists, and that means offering better terms. As for the classic player, the last build is 5.9.1 10029 from last December, and it is rumored that version 5.9.2 will debut in the coming weeks.
Official site: Click here
