Nullsoft, Inc. is a software house

Software house

A software house is a company whose primary products are software.- Types :There are a number of different types of software houses:*Large and well-known companies such as Microsoft, SAP AG, Oracle Corporation, HP, Adobe Systems, Apple Inc...

 founded in Sedona, Arizona

Sedona, Arizona

Sedona is a city that straddles the county line between Coconino and Yavapai counties in the northern Verde Valley region of the U.S. state of Arizona...

 in 1997 by Justin Frankel

Justin Frankel

Justin Frankel is an American computer programmer best known for his work on the Winamp media player application and for inventing the gnutella peer-to-peer network...

. Its most known products include the Winamp

Winamp

Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.Winamp...

 media player and the SHOUTcast

SHOUTcast

SHOUTcast is cross-platform proprietary software for streaming media over the Internet. The software, developed by Nullsoft , allows digital audio content, primarily in MP3 or HE-AAC format, to be broadcast to and from media player software, enabling the creation of Internet radio "stations"...

 MP3

MP3

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

 streaming media

Streaming media

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...

 server. In recent years, their open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 installer system, NSIS

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System is a script-driven Windows installation system with minimal overhead backed by Nullsoft, the creators of Winamp...

, has also risen in popularity as a widely used alternative to commercial products like InstallShield

InstallShield

InstallShield is a software tool for creating installers or software packages. InstallShield is primarily used for installing software for Microsoft Windows desktop and server platforms, but it can also be used to manage software applications and packages on a variety of handheld and mobile devices...

. The company's name is a parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 of Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

. Mike the Llama is the company's mascot

Mascot

The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...

; this is frequently referred to in promotional material (especially for Winamp) citing llama

Llama

The llama is a South American camelid, widely used as a meat and pack animal by Andean cultures since pre-Hispanic times....

s. Frankel introduced the llama in Winamp's startup sound clip, inspired by the lyrics of Wesley Willis

Wesley Willis

Wesley Willis was a musician and artist from Chicago. A diagnosed chronic schizophrenic, he gained an enormous cult following in the 1990s after releasing several hundred songs of simple but unique music, with emphasis on his humorous, bizarre, and frequently obscene lyrics...

: "Winamp, it really whips the llama's ass!"

Their latest developments included the Nullsoft Streaming Video

Nullsoft Streaming Video

Nullsoft Streaming Video is a media container designed for streaming video content over the internet. NSV was developed by Nullsoft, the makers of Winamp....

 (NSV) format, which was intended to stream media that uses any audio

Audio codec

All codecs are devices or computer programs capable of coding or decoding a digital data stream or signal.The term audio codec has two meanings depending on the context:...

 or video codec

Video codec

A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression. Historically, video was stored as an analog signal on magnetic tape...

. NSV is currently being used in a venture named "Nullsoft Television", and in the Ultravox

Ultravox (software)

Ultravox or Ultravox Media On Demand Server , is a streaming video project by AOL. The goal is to create something like SHOUTcast but for routers, so that the data is handled much better, can handle more users efficiently, and channel changing is much faster.- Marketing :Certain streams made...

 system, which is under development. Nullsoft is also famous for the creation of Gnutella

Gnutella

Gnutella is a large peer-to-peer network which, at the time of its creation, was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model...

 and WASTE

WASTE

WASTE is a peer-to-peer and friend-to-friend protocol and software application developed by Justin Frankel at Nullsoft in 2003 that features instant messaging, chat rooms and file browsing/sharing capabilities. The name WASTE is a reference to Thomas Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49. In the...

.

Nullsoft was sold to America Online on June 1, 1999, and thereafter existed as a subsidiary

Subsidiary

A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...

 of America Online. After the acquisition, Nullsoft headquarters were moved to San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. Nullsoft subsequently released several new versions of the Winamp player, and has grown its monthly unique subscriber base from 33 million users to over 52 million users over the course of 2005. Nullsoft's San Francisco offices were closed in December 2003, with a near-concurrent departure of Justin Frankel

Justin Frankel

Justin Frankel is an American computer programmer best known for his work on the Winamp media player application and for inventing the gnutella peer-to-peer network...

and the original Winamp development team. Nullsoft is now a division of AOL Music.