Justin Frankel
Justin Frankel | |
|---|---|
| Born | Template:Birth year and age Sedona, Arizona, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Software developer, entrepreneur |
| Known for | Creating Winamp, pioneering Gnutella peer-to-peer network |
| Notable work | Winamp, Gnutella, SHOUTcast, REAPER, NINJAM, Jesusonic |
Justin Frankel (born 1978) is an American software developer renowned for creating the Winamp media player and pioneering the Gnutella peer-to-peer network. He established Cockos Incorporated, a company that develops music production tools including the REAPER digital audio workstation, the collaborative music platform NINJAM, and the Jesusonic customizable effects processor.
In 2002, Frankel was honored in the TR100 list as one of the top 100 innovators under the age of 35.
Early life
Frankel was born in 1978 in Sedona, Arizona. From a young age, he exhibited strong computing skills, overseeing the student network at Verde Valley School and creating an email client specifically for student use.
Winamp
After completing high school with a 3.9 GPA, Frankel briefly enrolled at the University of Utah in 1996 to study computer science but left after two terms. Shortly thereafter, he released the initial version of Winamp through his company Nullsoft. By 1998, Winamp had been downloaded more than fifteen million times and was generating thousands of dollars monthly from voluntary $10 contributions.
Alongside Tom Pepper, who played a key role in Winamp’s development and distribution, Frankel developed SHOUTcast, a service that enabled internet audio streaming. He also created the Advanced Visualization Studio plugin for Winamp, which allowed users to design real-time music visualizations without needing programming expertise.
Sale of Nullsoft to AOL
In June 1999, AOL purchased Nullsoft and Spinner.com in a combined transaction valued at roughly $400 million. According to an SEC filing dated July 21, 1999, the deal involved transferring 2,863,053 shares of AOL common stock to 54 stockholders of both companies. With AOL’s stock trading at $113.1875 per share on July 20, Frankel’s allocation of 522,661 shares was worth approximately $59 million.
AOL
On March 14, 2000, Frankel and Nullsoft collaborator Tom Pepper launched Gnutella, a public peer-to-peer file-sharing application hosted on Nullsoft servers without AOL’s awareness. Unlike Napster, Gnutella supported sharing any type of file and operated without central servers, making it resistant to shutdown attempts.
Due to AOL’s impending merger with Time Warner, which was engaged in litigation against Napster, Gnutella presented a conflict of interest. AOL demanded its removal from Nullsoft servers; however, thousands had already downloaded the software. Subsequently, its source code was released under the GPL. Gnutella continued independently as a major peer-to-peer network and inspired clients such as BearShare, Morpheus, Gnucleus, and LimeWire.
Following this event, AOL closely supervised Frankel’s activities and blocked additional projects he attempted to release publicly, including an MP3 search engine and an ad-blocking patch for AOL Instant Messenger. On June 2, 2003, after AOL removed his private peer-to-peer application WASTE from the Nullsoft website, Frankel threatened to resign. Nevertheless, he stayed on to finalize Winamp version 5.0, which integrated features from both Winamp v2.x and v3.
On December 9, 2003, AOL shut down Nullsoft’s San Francisco offices and laid off 450 employees. Frankel announced his resignation on January 22, 2004 via his blog, marking the beginning of a new phase in his professional journey.
Post-AOL
Following his departure from AOL, Justin Frankel has continued to push the boundaries of innovation through his enterprise, Cockos. Among its offerings are Jesusonic, a customizable effects processor, and NINJAM, a platform designed for remote, real-time collaborative music production. The company's premier software, REAPER, is a highly adaptable digital audio workstation that supports Microsoft Windows, MacOS, and Linux operating systems, catering to a broad spectrum of audio production professionals.
External links
- Justin Frankel's blog
- The World's Most Dangerous Geek; Interview by David Kushner, RollingStone.com, 2004
- Justin Frankel Reveals Life After Winamp; BetaNews interview, 2005
- Turn Off The Internet; Collaborative site by Steve Gedikian and Justin Frankel
- Interview on Winamp and REAPER design; Digital Tools, 2008
- The Men Who Stole the World; Time, 2010
- Jesusonic / EEL programming reference
- Articles with short description
- Articles with hCards
- No local image but image on Wikidata
- 1978 births
- American male bloggers
- American bloggers
- Computer programmers
- American computer businesspeople
- American Jews
- Living people
- People from Sedona, Arizona
- University of Utah alumni
- AOL people
- American technology company founders