What Is Napster Inventor Shawn Fanning Doing Now?
In June 1999, an underachieving college kid named Shawn Fanning offered up to his chat room friends a new program for shaing music online with the proviso “Don’t tell anyone about it.” Napster, of course, spread like the plague and set in motion the downfall of the traditional recorded music business.
So where’s Shawn now? He’s 31, living in San Francisco and working on various software projects. A company called Snocap failed in its attempt at a digital licensing plan. Rupture, a social video game network did much better. There’s Path, the social mobile app favoured by geeks.
His latest project is called Airtime which was somehow inspired by Chatroulette and somehow seeks to connect people through common interests. It is not, he stresses, a dating site. Whatever it is, it’ll be launched later this year.
And this is interesting: he’s working once again with Sean Parker, his old partner from the Napster days.
He should've been shot.
^ That's a bit harsh, Lars Ulrich.