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AOL Shuts Down Instant Messenger After 20 Years

posted by mrpg on Sunday October 08 2017, @03:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the makes-me-feel-old dept.

Appalbarry writes:

The Guardian (and likely everyone else) is reporting that AOL is killing off their instant messenger service. For those of us who never quite got the hang of IRC, AOL Messenger (not to mention MSN Messenger at the same time) was a truly fun way to chat with people we knew in an age before smart phones and SMS. And yes, my AOL screen name wound up becoming my default ID almost everywhere.

An article on AOL's website on Friday said AOL Instant Messenger will be discontinued on 15 December. The program will still function until then but after that, users won't be able to sign in and all data will be deleted. AOL says people with an aim.com email address will still be able to use it.

In a blogpost, a spokesman for AOL's parent company explained the platform's demise as the casualty of the evolving way people communicate.

"AIM tapped into new digital technologies and ignited a cultural shift, but the way in which we communicate with each other has profoundly changed," wrote Michael Albers, vice president of communications at Oath.

Launched in 1997, AOL Instant Messenger was at the forefront of what was called at the time the biggest trend in online communication since email.

I for one would happily trade in WhatsApp, Google Chat, and all of the others for a return to AOL Messenger.

Also at USA TODAY: RIP AIM: AOL Instant Messenger dies in December

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @08:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @08:15AM (#579185)

    IMHO they should have attempted a comeback instead.

    I personally haven't used AIM, it was never popular around here. I started on ICQ, then went with MSN Messenger when everyone else moved there. At some point Skype came along with a shitty client and a proprietary protocol, and some people ended up having both, but MSN won mostly by being supported by other clients (e.g. Pidgin).

    Unfortunately, Microsoft decided that shitty + proprietary was a perfect match for their corporate culture, bought Skype and shut down MSN Messenger.

    At that point, AOL should have tried to make a comeback with AIM, taking over all the people who were using MSN Messenger with Pidgin, Trillian, etc, and who didn't want to be forced into the Skype sh*t.

    At the moment, it's pretty much either Skype (for those who love sh*tty software) or e-mail. XMPP never became a huge success, and finding a server that works on Windows without a ton of runtimes and compatibility libraries is hopeless, and SIP is not much better especially when looking for the IM part not the phone part.