Winamp

Based in Belgium, Winamp describes itself as “the ultimate music machine,” and acts as a dynamic platform where musicians can create and distribute content of all genres, from hip-hop to cabaret. Winamp appeals equally to music lovers who join the platform to find and support new musicians early in their careers—along with access to exclusive content. With more recent expansion into podcasts, radio stations, and NFTs that serve various topical interests, Winamp has prioritized giving the people what they want.

They’ve been doing it since the invention of the mainstream internet, having established the site in the 1990s. And while a first-to-the-scene approach has helped the company grow, it has also burdened its developers with complex legacy code gathered over the decades. That’s why, in 2023, Winamp decided to refresh its infrastructure. The new build would create a more streamlined, cost-efficient composition—and provide an opportunity to add features and capabilities that would serve its creators and their fans.

The key to delayed interaction? Notifications, naturally

Part of the Winamp site is the Fanzone where creators publish items such as new videos or music clips. Like any content-centric platform, interaction with fans is essential to creators’ success.

"We realized interactions were low. For example, if a creator posted something and a fan commented, it would take several days for that creator to respond", Tim Vuegen, software developer at Winamp.

After some investigation, the team determined that creators were slow to engage with fans because they didn’t know when followers commented. Likewise, fans did not receive alerts when creators posted something new. 

Given the significant undertaking of refining Winamp on the backend, the development teams knew they didn’t have the resources to build a notification system independently. A quick Google search led them to MagicBell, and it was obvious that this ready-to-go notification system was the path they wanted to take.

An effortless user experience—on both sides

Frontend and backend developers worked together to oversee MagicBell’s implementation, but they soon discovered that the real-time notification system didn’t require the thorough coordination they were expecting.

“One of the biggest advantages of MagicBell compared to competitors was the ease of implementation,” said Arnaud Rochez, a web developer at Winamp. “It was straightforward on the front end, and easy for our users to navigate.”

After plugging MagicBell into the back end, the team tested it with fake data, running a proof of concept to see if the notification system matched Winamp’s needs. They leveraged MagicBell’s dashboard to understand how users would receive notifications and how the displays looked. This helped the teams determine where they could customize the visual aspects of the notification system to match Winamp’s brand and UX.

Refining their way to a perfect product

As Winamp incorporated MagicBell across its site—sending notifications to creators when fans interacted with content, and sending fans notifications when creators posted—MagicBell offered seamless access to support. When the teams had questions about an Android-related fix, they got a direct line to MagicBell founder Hana Mohan via Slack.

As they move into the second phase of the site’s refresh, the Winamp teams are considering other ways to apply MagicBell. 

“Since creators can gain revenue for rights and distribution on Winamp, we could use MagicBell to send notifications when money is transferred to their accounts from the platform,” Arnaud said. Winamp also sees MagicBell as a useful tool in letting site members know when the company releases new features.

And they can do this economically.

“MagicBell comes at a fixed cost, so we can set up as many notifications as we want,” Tim said. “And setting up new notifications is not time-consuming or difficult, which is resource-efficient.”