This article was published on April 26, 2013

AOL Radio confirms AOL Music, The Boot, Noisecreep, Spinner, and The Boombox are all shutting down


AOL Radio confirms AOL Music, The Boot, Noisecreep, Spinner, and The Boombox are all shutting down

It looks like AOL Music is shutting down. Dan Reilly, the editor of the music, is apparently tweeting from an HR meeting where his staff just got the news.

Update: AOL Music, The Boot, Noisecreep, Spinner, and The Boombox are all going away. See the bottom of this article for more details.

The <3 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

The Spinner account on Twitter also appears to have tweeted something along the same lines, according to a retweet: “All of AOL Music is shutting down. Thank you all for your support. We had such a blast.” This tweet has since been removed, as was the one before it (as captured by Lori Lewis):

BIzQVIdCEAA4W9l

It’s currently unclear how many staff will be laid off and what deadline AOL is setting for itself. Given that the Spinner tweets were deleted, however, we can assume the company wasn’t yet ready to announce the shuttering publicly. Furthermore, Reilly’s third tweet seems to suggest that while AOL Music looks to be going away, Spinner may live on in some form. It appears that even he’s not sure what the final verdict will be.

aol_music

The music and entertainment site Spinner was acquired by AOL on June 1, 1999, along with Nullsoft for $400 million. Based in San Francisco, California, it is largely considered to be the first Internet music service.

In 2002, AOL combined Spinner with its Netscape portal to form Netscape Radio and in 2008, Spinner was revamped by AOL as a music site, featuring exclusive interviews with recording artists, streams of albums and live performances, and free daily downloads.

We have contacted AOL for more information. We will update this story if we hear back.

Update at 5:15 PM EST: AOL Radio has confirmed the shuttering of AOL Music, and more. The Boot, Noisecreep, Spinner, and The Boombox are also being axed.

Hat tip: Forrest Kobayashi

Top Image Credit: smarles

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Also tagged with