Earlier quoted context omitted.
i loved that feature. i remember sending a 3gb file over the network in just over a minute (early 2ks)
That's a pretty large file, especially for early 2000s standards. I'm guessing DivX?
compressed binaries :)
AIM will shut down after 20 years
121–130 of 345 posts
Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Telegram requires a phone number even for the desktop app - that's just mind-boggling and a turnoff for me trying to move to a new service.
I should clarify, both Telegram and Viber allow usernames but require phone numbers for creation, and there's definitely an emphasis on phone numbers as the preferred identifier.
Kik (and Snapchat, if I recall) are two of an increasingly thinning number of networks which operate on usernames only, and you can use without giving the provider (or anyone you're trying to chat with) your phone number.
Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years
#123I miss dedicated IM services like AIM. They had a certain dynamic that Facebook Messenger (or similar) and SMS lack. On AIM, logging in was an active choice and it signaled that you were up for a conversation. With Facebook Messenger, everyone who has the app is always "online." This means that: a) I get messages from people I don't want to have a conversation with at the moment and it seems rude if I ignore them, be…
What you are lamenting the lack of is the 'presence' indicator, where you can set yourself Available, Away, Busy, or simply Offline. Of the current crop of IM clients, only Skype still has it (I think).
Of the older IM clients; Lync had it, so did Lotus Sametime, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and of course AIM.
Somewhere along the line the presence feature got dropped, and now we're always 'Available' even when we're not.
Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years
#124I miss dedicated IM services like AIM. They had a certain dynamic that Facebook Messenger (or similar) and SMS lack. On AIM, logging in was an active choice and it signaled that you were up for a conversation. With Facebook Messenger, everyone who has the app is always "online." This means that: a) I get messages from people I don't want to have a conversation with at the moment and it seems rude if I ignore them, be…
On top of that, I feel like many people view the chat as subservient to the main feature of Facebook (sharing and commenting on articles, pictures, and personal rants). The last few times I attempted to have conversations with people on Facebook chat, people seemed happy but somewhat surprised, chatted for a little bit, and then the conversation quickly died (and no attempt was made to revive it).
Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Aol and yahoo both use gmail internall You couldn't be more wrong about Yahoo, unless something changed in the last six months.
I quit, yahoo, in the last 6 months and they were definitely using gmail prior to that.
Which of the below do you mean:
a) Employees of yahoo using gmail for personal purposes?
b) Yahoo, the company, uses gmail
c) @yahoo.com will be powered by gmail in the future as a white labeled product?
(Each of the above is alarming in it's own way)
Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing the other responders might be from other countries. SMS was THE thing when I was younger (early 2000s) way before AIM, ICQ or anything else. Mainly because not everyone had a computer, but everyone had a cell phone. And then when mobile data became all the rage, everyone I know just installed ICQ on their phone because the data transfer for ICQ was less than the cost of an SMS. I grew up in Europe and wh…
European too, and had opposite experience: had access to internet quite young (around 8-9 years old I was already starting to bother my parents so that I could play on battle.net a bit and this meant they coudldn't receive phone calls! but it was max 20h of internet per months... until AOL and their wonderful unlimited dial-up of course). However I didn't get a cell phone until 15. When I was in sixth and seventh gra…
My school (in the US) was very striated into ethnic groups. The Hispanic kids were really into MSN, the white kids used AIM, and the black kids used SMS.
Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
I quit, yahoo, in the last 6 months and they were definitely using gmail prior to that.
Which of the below do you mean: a) Employees of yahoo using gmail for personal purposes? b) Yahoo, the company, uses gmail c) @yahoo.com will be powered by gmail in the future as a white labeled product? (Each of the above is alarming in it's own way)
It's clearly (b) from the context.
Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I quit, yahoo, in the last 6 months and they were definitely using gmail prior to that.
Which of the below do you mean: a) Employees of yahoo using gmail for personal purposes? b) Yahoo, the company, uses gmail c) @yahoo.com will be powered by gmail in the future as a white labeled product? (Each of the above is alarming in it's own way)
I don't know about Yahoo, but in other organizations I've seen employees using gmail, for work, because it's more convenient than the corporate/enterprise email platform.
Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years
#129bsd talk improved on write much. nothing since.
Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years
#130I miss dedicated IM services like AIM. They had a certain dynamic that Facebook Messenger (or similar) and SMS lack. On AIM, logging in was an active choice and it signaled that you were up for a conversation. With Facebook Messenger, everyone who has the app is always "online." This means that: a) I get messages from people I don't want to have a conversation with at the moment and it seems rude if I ignore them, be…
What you are lamenting the lack of is the 'presence' indicator, where you can set yourself Available, Away, Busy, or simply Offline. Of the current crop of IM clients, only Skype still has it (I think). Of the older IM clients; Lync had it, so did Lotus Sametime, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and of course AIM. Somewhere along the line the presence feature got dropped, and now we're always 'Available' even whe…
This completely supports the idea that when you use a free service, you are not the customer.
Away/busy messages and invisibility are comforts for users. They go away when execs see that doing so bumps some (probably bullshit anyway) "engagement" metric by 5%.