↪ Winamp shuts down
Before I knew the words “industrial design” or “UI” even existed, I loved making skins for Winamp and various other applications (my 2004 skin, Impulse, still shows up on their site). It was a fun, approachable way to create functional pieces of art, and in retrospect taught me a lot about creating a product from start to finish. It was exciting to make something in my bedroom that hundreds of thousands of people around the world would use.
It’s sad to see Winamp go. The company had a great sense of humor and an inspiring indie culture that was gradually crushed after its acquisition by AOL. Sadder to me, is that I can’t think of today’s equivalent, a widespread and useful app that encourages its users to tinker and easily modify the interface.