Just a little parody that I stumbled, which is awesome! Thanks to a post from George Takei. I often run into geeky parodies while exploring the vast greatness of the internet, but I thought that this one stood out. Enjoy!
Music
Winamp Will Soon Be Gone Forever
Oh how the memories just start to roll on in when I think about all of the great music I played with Winamp over the years, but now it’s all coming to an end as Winamp will soon shutdown forever.
I have to admit that it’s been quite a while since I last used Winamp, and that’s mostly thanks to the introduction of iTunes and Spotify, but Winamp has held on strong over the years and it’s still a great media player. Winamp had everything you could want in an mp3 player and by far it was my top choice ever since I downloaded it in the late 90’s when it was used to play an entire library of music downloaded from Napster.
Winamp was originally released in 1997 and was then bought by AOL in 1999, ever since then a steady flow of updates have continued to improve upon the original. The latest version allows you to stream music to your Android mobile device and also creates a seamless link to your iTunes library.
The good news is if you want to download Winamp you still have some time to do so. The Winamp site will officially go off-line on December 20, 2013, but until then you can still download the latest version for Mac, PC, and Android from winamp.com.
Here is the official notice that appears on the website:
Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date. See release notes for latest improvements to this last release.
Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years.”
Thanks Winamp for being the perfect mp3 player for so long, we will miss you!
Blink 182 to Play at Blizzcon
In a recent press release from Blizzard Entertainment we now know that Blink 182 will be officially closing out Blizzcon 2013. Blizzard canceled their plans for a 2012 Blizzcon last year due to an intense internal schedule but in 2011 they had a fantastic show and closed it all out with legendary rockers The Foo Fighters.
“After two days of hard work watching games and playing games and talking about games, we can’t think of a better way to kick back and relax than to have your face melted by Blink-182,” “We’re thrilled to have such an awesome band helping us bring BlizzCon to an epic conclusion.” – Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment.
“Nothing beats touring and playing in front of a live crowd,” said Tom DeLonge, Blink-182 guitarist and vocalist. “Our roots are in Southern California, so playing at BlizzCon will be like having a show in our own backyard—only with a couple thousand more orcs and elves in loincloths and bikini armor.”
YouTube Could Offer Paid Subscription Service
Billboard has reported that YouTube may be offering a paid subscription service later this year that focuses on music, more specifically, music videos. The service will likely have both premium and free content that will be available on any device.
The challenge for Google is that many users already enjoy their favorite music for free at anytime on YouTube, so how could they design a service you would want to pay a fee for? It’s likely that some features may include the removal of ads, access to full albums, and exclusive “premium only” content. In many ways this service will be similar to what Spotify currently offers and with the massive audience that YouTube has, this could be a very sucessful move for them.
As of this posting there is no official confirmation from YouTube on whether or not such a service will launch or if it does, when, although some have speculated a holiday launch later this year.
Google Launches Music Subscription Service
Google has recently launched a music subscription service, “Google Play Music, All Access“. The launch followed it’s initial announcement at Google’s I/O conference in San Francisco. The service currently comes in two flavors, Standard and All Access. The Standard edition let’s you store up to 20,000 of your songs, have sync-free access to your music from anywhere, and of course you can always buy music from the Google Play library. The All Access option has all of the aforementioned features but also includes an unlimited online radio mode which you can customize to your liking.
The standard option is free. The All Access option will cost $9.99/ month unless you sign up before 6/30, then you can get in for $7.99 / month.
So, Google has a music subscription service now, what’s the big deal? We have seen this before, it’s nothing ground breaking right? Well, the short answer is no but it’s not really about pushing limits, it’s about getting into the game and Google has a big advantage by being deeply integrated to the Android market. That’s a lot of exposure and a lot of potential subscribers. Not to mention that Google will undoubtedly find a way to make things more appealing over time.