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AIM will shut down after 20 years

theverge.com

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Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#71

Post by _ea1k »

dasil003 wrote: post #30
bloaf wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was text messaging before everyone had a computer in their pockets.

Not SMS? Funny how quickly the iPhone has erased the memory of earlier mobile technology. SMS is not only where the term text messaging comes from, but it's older than AIM, older than MSN, older than ICQ.

It is certainly true that SMS predated it, but in the US SMS was very limited at the time. The cost and mediocre phone keyboards kept its use down, and, of course, it wasn't practically usable from PCs.

Ironically, SMS probably replaced AIM for a lot of people as a lot of these limitations started to fall away.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#72

Post by linkmotif »

> With AIM on its way out the door, now’s your last chance to write that perfect away message.

Interesting in hindsight then how some platforms adopted this one element, turned it into a log of away messages, dropped the messaging, and created "social media".

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#73

Post by sarcasmic »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #14

Pity. I spent many, many hours on AIM in my youth. Cultivated friendships, relationships, and many other one-off contacts. I suppose it has been made obsolete now by Facebook and other social media apps, but those were never truly replacements for AIM in my mind, as most of them have eschewed the venerable screen name in favor of your real name or e-mail address. And for the vast majority of people I talk to online,…

Out of the western networks, Kik, Telegram, and Viber still do usernames.

Kik, notably, still has a fairly laissez-faire culture and a userbase that skews young, which makes it the most comparable modern network to the feel of something like AIM in its heyday; with the difference that so many people having overlapping identities, discourse is now fragmented between various platforms for reasons more than just network effects.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#74

Post by autokad »

mirkules wrote: post #19
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #14

Pity. I spent many, many hours on AIM in my youth. Cultivated friendships, relationships, and many other one-off contacts. I suppose it has been made obsolete now by Facebook and other social media apps, but those were never truly replacements for AIM in my mind, as most of them have eschewed the venerable screen name in favor of your real name or e-mail address. And for the vast majority of people I talk to online,…

For me the killer feature of AIM was P2P file transfer. Is there even a service today that does this? It was so easy to just click "send a file" and it worked fairly reliably. Dropbox comes close, but, of course, it is not a direct file transfer.

i loved that feature. i remember sending a 3gb file over the network in just over a minute (early 2ks)

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#75

Post by snarf21 »

empath75 wrote: post #28

5 years ago, aol still used aim internally for everything that people use slack for today. Group chats, bots, notifications for builds, etc, etc. Then gradually individual teams picked up slack and within maybe 18 months, we went from 100% aim to a gigantic corporate slack team. That was the end of AIM, I think. Aol and yahoo both use gmail internally so I suspect they’re going to shitcan their email services eventua…

It is hard to move the ball forward when you reorg every year and have minor layoffs almost every year to keep OIBDA moving in the right direction so the execs get larger bonuses. So many people were in self preservation mode with no interest in anything that was "risky" and might put their bonus at risk. Similar things happened with how they managed MapQuest.

Also, if you think they missed a chance on AIM, it is nothing compared to what they missed on email. They could easily have made aol mail free and still kept charging for the client. Ted Leonsis admitted at a meeting once that this was his largest regret.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#76

Post by brogrammernot »

empath75 wrote: post #28

5 years ago, aol still used aim internally for everything that people use slack for today. Group chats, bots, notifications for builds, etc, etc. Then gradually individual teams picked up slack and within maybe 18 months, we went from 100% aim to a gigantic corporate slack team. That was the end of AIM, I think. Aol and yahoo both use gmail internally so I suspect they’re going to shitcan their email services eventua…

That’s fascinating that you guys ended up choosing Slack.

I’m surprised because it seems like with the infrastructure already setup, AOL could’ve built an internal enterprise MVP and got a real leg-up on the rest of the competition. Missed opportunity for sure.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#77

Post by amiga-workbench »

phit_ wrote: post #53
mirkules wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the killer feature of AIM was P2P file transfer. Is there even a service today that does this? It was so easy to just click "send a file" and it worked fairly reliably. Dropbox comes close, but, of course, it is not a direct file transfer.

Skype used to do P2P until like 2 years ago, now all files shared are uploaded to their servers.

We are sadly still using Skype at work, and due to the lack of P2P file transfer I'm really sketched out sending database dumps, certificates, and other sensitive content with it to colleagues.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#78

Post by KGIII »

mirkules wrote: post #19
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #14

Pity. I spent many, many hours on AIM in my youth. Cultivated friendships, relationships, and many other one-off contacts. I suppose it has been made obsolete now by Facebook and other social media apps, but those were never truly replacements for AIM in my mind, as most of them have eschewed the venerable screen name in favor of your real name or e-mail address. And for the vast majority of people I talk to online,…

For me the killer feature of AIM was P2P file transfer. Is there even a service today that does this? It was so easy to just click "send a file" and it worked fairly reliably. Dropbox comes close, but, of course, it is not a direct file transfer.

Tox, like qTox supports file transfers.

I can't say that I've used it, however.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#79

Post by choko »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #14

Pity. I spent many, many hours on AIM in my youth. Cultivated friendships, relationships, and many other one-off contacts. I suppose it has been made obsolete now by Facebook and other social media apps, but those were never truly replacements for AIM in my mind, as most of them have eschewed the venerable screen name in favor of your real name or e-mail address. And for the vast majority of people I talk to online,…

ICQ lives on as well, though not under the original management. The account I created in the 90s still works.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#80

Post by k__ »

End of an era.

Back in the days there was AIM, ICQ, MSN, YIM and IRC and everyone had their own preferences.

I started with ICQ, because it was the thing gamers used and the shorter your UIN, the cooler you were!

Later I had to install MSN and AIM, because all the girls were using them.

Then there were the occasional YIM contact, hehe.

Most of the day I was in IRC, but this was a whole different beast.

2005 or so I finally found Trillian to end the mess.

Today I only use WhatsApp and Signal for private stuff.

Now and then Skype for TelCos.

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