Remembering AOL’s Instant Messenger

AIM, AOL’s Instant Messenger, will be shutting down as of December 15, 2017. For many people, its a sad moment, as it was for many their first social experience on the internet. AOL announced the shutdown a few days ago, and acknowledged that people now communicate in new ways online, making AIM no longer needed.

For people who have never heard of AIM before, it is similar to iMessage, but you could only do it from a desktop computer. You could set status messages, chat your friends, and even when I was younger video chat. You made yourself usernames that today you’d be extremely embarrassed and ashamed of. Alert noises would play when people logged on and off, and when you were being invited to video chat. AIM was a place for people to invent themselves online, and create buddy lists of friends, classmates, and crushes.

As time went on and everyone got older, people grew out of being on AIM. Myspace soon took AIM’s place, then later Facebook. Our AIM status’ were now present as Facebook status’ instead, and we were also able to post pictures to share with friends now on Facebook. The biggest thing that pushed AIM out of the minds of teens and students, was the evolution of smartphones. Texting took over instant messaging apps, and FaceTime took over the aspect of video chatting on AIM.

Many other classic chats like MSN Messenger have shut down in recent times, but AIM is the last one to finally throw in the towel. As upsetting it may to be some that AIM is signing off for the last time, AOL’s Instant Messenger has truly made online chatting history and will forever be remembered for the 20 amazing years it gave us.

Meyer, Robinson. “AIM Was Perfect, and Now It Will Die.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 6 Oct. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/aim-was-perfect-soon-it-will-be-dead/542322/.

4 thoughts on “Remembering AOL’s Instant Messenger

  1. I think it’s really incredibly interesting that AIM was never really developed to compete with the other messaging services. Of course, I believe they did develop an app for it, but it’s weird to think that AOL never pursued much in the way of product differentiation in order keep old users and attract new users. One thing they could have done early on was purchase a growing company like WhatsApp and use its architecture under the name AOL. I think that this would have been away for them to have one over messaging services like Kik or Whatsapp. Surely AOL should have recognized after the advent of iMessage that its days were numbered. That being said, its amazing that AIM lasted as long as it did. It’s pretty interesting that AOL has managed to stay a float despite being associated with some holding some outdated technologies like MapQuest.

  2. Part of me is sad about AIM going away, but the other part of me also thought AIM went away a long time ago. I forgot they were even in existence still as it has been so long since I’ve heard about it! It’s always sad to see a part of your childhood go away (Ex. Club Penguin) but sometimes it’s just necessary to move on. I think this stems from the fact that we as a generation don’t miss AIM specifically, but rather it just reminds us of a time in our lives when everything was so innocent and easy. It brings us a sense of nostalgia, and it’s naturally very difficult to let go of. But with the rate at which technology is changing, it just makes sense for AIM to fade out. I’m honestly surprised it lasted as long as it did! With iMessage, GroupMe, Facebook Messenger, and social media in general, the need for AIM has diminished with every new platform available to consumers. Yes, it’s sad that AIM is going away, but it’s exciting at the same time because it marks the end of an era, and the entrance of a new one.

  3. After reading about AIM being discontinued it reminded me of another application that is now old, but heavily used in its glory days with that being Microsoft Paint. I think our generation and people older than us can all remember doodling in paint over the years. For some, it was in the dial up era when sometimes you couldn’t get online,so you would fire up paint or for me whenever I was bored beyond belief, I would open it up and try to make something as a kid. This application will be discontinued with a Windows 10 update and will be replaced by a 3D paint application. Some good news, however, is that it will remain in the Windows Store for free. Technology is ever changing and improving, so no app, no matter how good, will stay on the market forever. Everything will be replaced by something newer and better as time progresses.

  4. It’s heartbreaking to hear this news, but it was AIM’s time. This article coincides with my blog post about the social media’s new direction. As we learned in class on Tuesday, the Web 2.0, with its introduction to interactivity on the web, led to the development of social networks. AIM is my favorite example of the middle ground right before social networks. Since it was so limited, new networks and devices took this idea of instant messaging and embellished it with entertaining bells and whistles. With this official end to the pre-social network online messaging, we can look forward to the next step of further advancements.

Leave a Reply