So Long SHOUTcast!?

There was big news in the streaming world this week as AOL announced that is wasn’t interested in keeping SHOUTcast alive anymore. For the non-geeks among us, SHOUTcast is a technology (owned by AOL) that is used by around half of the streaming listeners in the United States. The share of SHOUTcast outside the US is much smaller. While its not clear what’s going to happen to the intellectual property of SHOUTcast, I think the role of Icecast (a competing “open-source” platform) is going to be the clear successor. While Icecast does the same thing as SHOUTcast, it’s not licensed or owned by any one company.

#EDIT

It turns out that about a month after I wrote this post, Radionomy BOUGHT SHOUTcast from AOL!!! I’m now in charge of the product. It was an amazing turn of events and has been quite a challenge bringing this product back to life for the broadcasters using it. For more information see http://shoutcast.com/broadcastnow