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AIM will be discontinued today

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Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#221

Post by mxuribe »

yosamino wrote: post #174
c22 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The source is pointless. You can build a much better chat system on modern technology in a weekend. The lost value is in their centralized servers with thousands of existing accounts. I'd always thought services like AIM would be replaced by more decentralized systems, but instead we have even more segmented walled garden chat apps where you don't even get to use your own client.

I will say this: XMPP is far from perfect. But I recently came back to it from a five year absence or so, and I must say, it's gotten really good. I set up a server with relatively little difficulty, and since in my circle, it's common to have multiple messengers on the phone anyhow, asking someone: hey, I want to use this other one, wasn't a big hassle. Conversations for Android is really good, and on iDevice ChatSe…

XMPP is not bad but I'm hopeful for matrix-like protocols, which support the decentralized model of operation...thereby hopefully allowing for longer - not so easy to shutdown - shelf life. But the beauty of open protocols is that bridges can be built between xmpp and matrix...so everyone wins!...well, everyone adopting the open stuff. ;-)

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#222

Post by nasredin »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #77
scott_s wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the same kind , though the difference was subtle, and maybe not an important distinction to most people. In ICQ, you sent discrete messages back and forth. You could (I believe) look at the last message while replying, but you didn't have a chat history integrated into the same window where you replied. I used both ICQ and AIM in the '90s and early 2000s, even talking to the same people, and the interactions felt…

I still have my ICQ number burned into my brain. There are other, more important, numbers I should be remembering and at times cannot, but that ICQ number is there.

I was quite proud of my 7-digit (in ICQ world, the SMALLER the UIN (why do I still remember these acronyms!) the BIGGER your penis was) ICQ number that started with 404.

404. Quite clever, eh? I guess there was a lot more HTTP 404 errors back then.

---

Yes, I too remember my ICQ number but not the birthdays of... I PLEAD THE FIFTH YOUR HONOR!

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#223

Post by esotericsean »

Jarwain wrote: post #197
tunesmith wrote: post #182

One thing I'll miss about AIM is that it's a communication modality that doesn't exist right now. It was everywhere, and on MacOS it was integrated into the OS. For most people I knew, they had it set to join when they got on the computer. So it meant that you knew when your friends were at the computer, and you knew when you could have long "in the background" conversations with your friends. It was just a different…

I find Discord to fill this space in a slightly more effective way, although I don't believe they differentiate from mobile vs. computer use quite yet. However, I find a majority of my friends (and I personally) use discord mainly on desktop. I don't even have discord on my phone.

I use Discord, but I only have it installed on my phone. More convenient that way.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#224

Post by esotericsean »

veridies wrote: post #207

I still used AIM up until today. My friends and I just switched over to a private XMPP server, and we've been using Pidgin/Adium anyway, so it's not a huge change. AIM has been extremely reliable, I've been able to use it on every platform I've ever owned (usually with free software), and it's easy to end-to-end encrypt messages. My friends and I just never saw a reason to move away from AIM. Everyone just decided to…

You'll still be able to use AIM if you setup a private server? I need to look into this.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#225

Post by nasredin »

wincy wrote: post #70
empath75 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can give you the reason. Everybody at aol stopped using it years ago for internal communication and switched to slack. The team had also been cut down to a skeleton crew a long time ago and they stopped development on it. The reason why they are killing it as opposed to letting it hang around for ever is that aol has been in a multi-year long process of moving everything to AWS and due to the way aim is architected…

I was amazed the other day to discover my favorite board game publisher, Rio Grande Games, has the email address (posted in their games as of 2017) of riogames@aol.com, which really surprised me. I wonder if they're still making money off of AOL email accounts?

@aol.com is popular with the "hipster" / "techbro" crowd here.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#226

Post by nasredin »

yosamino wrote: post #174
c22 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The source is pointless. You can build a much better chat system on modern technology in a weekend. The lost value is in their centralized servers with thousands of existing accounts. I'd always thought services like AIM would be replaced by more decentralized systems, but instead we have even more segmented walled garden chat apps where you don't even get to use your own client.

I will say this: XMPP is far from perfect. But I recently came back to it from a five year absence or so, and I must say, it's gotten really good. I set up a server with relatively little difficulty, and since in my circle, it's common to have multiple messengers on the phone anyhow, asking someone: hey, I want to use this other one, wasn't a big hassle. Conversations for Android is really good, and on iDevice ChatSe…

Just plugging Tox.

https://tox.chat/

Decentralized, DHT-like, no phone numbers.

I've researched all others and Tox is the best choice ATM if you want YOUR data to belong to YOU.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#227

Post by bas »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #24
lode wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIM Status messages were the original inspiration for Twitter, then twttr. See : https://www.flickr.com/photos/jackdorsey/182613360 - twttr sketch by founder Jack Dorsey.

It's amazing (disheartening?) to see Twitter evolve from the website where you could tell your friends that you were eating dinner, to a website where the President of the USA makes real policy announcements.

Life comes at you fast.

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#228

Post by thex10 »

tunesmith wrote: post #182

One thing I'll miss about AIM is that it's a communication modality that doesn't exist right now. It was everywhere, and on MacOS it was integrated into the OS. For most people I knew, they had it set to join when they got on the computer. So it meant that you knew when your friends were at the computer, and you knew when you could have long "in the background" conversations with your friends. It was just a different…

Completely agree. I miss this capability so much. Now with cell phones we're 'always online' but in a weird way less available (well. way more of my messages get ignored now than did my AIM chats).

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#229

Post by binaryblitz »

esotericsean wrote: post #223
Jarwain wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Discord to fill this space in a slightly more effective way, although I don't believe they differentiate from mobile vs. computer use quite yet. However, I find a majority of my friends (and I personally) use discord mainly on desktop. I don't even have discord on my phone.

I use Discord, but I only have it installed on my phone. More convenient that way.

Do you actually use it for gaming?

Re: AIM will be discontinued today

#230

Post by nasredin »

rtx wrote: post #56
staticelf wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't know what that dude was talking about. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

First it became live.com

Where does "MSN" and "Passport" fit in this orgy?

Hotmail->Live->Outlook

Hotmail - young rebellious teenager with 2 MB of storage

Live - "experimenting" phase, "monopoly conviction? I do not recall!"

Outlook - Older YUP, approaching middle age, quite cynical, but still might change, albeit with reluctance and complete lack of enthusiasm

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