MESSAGE
| DATE | 2017-10-08 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] AIM - no long term stability in anything
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http://fortune.com/2017/10/06/aim-is-dead-long-live-aim/
By Barb Darrow Oct 6th, 2017 1:32 PM ET
Even people who haven’t used AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM, for years,
were distressed to hear that it would be killed on Dec. 15.
I never wanted to leave AIM in the first place, but since Apple stopped
supporting it three years ago, it was just too difficult to maintain on
a Mac or other Apple device. Yes, there was a complicated workaround,
but who had the energy?
AIM was a key go-to communications channel for me for more than five
years. That AIM “buddy list” included hundreds of people—friends,
colleagues, PR people, and less official sources at various companies.
It was the perfect channel for getting a quick quote or confirmation,
and then move on. No muss, no fuss, and no voice mail tag.
Why AIM Was Beloved
One AIM buddy was Barry Appelman, one of the AIM developers who launched
the service in 1997. Four years later, AIM claimed 36 million active
users. Appelman explained at the time that AOL had debuted AIM around
the same time Microsoft started pushing its rival MSN Internet portal
and network. AOL’s original goal with AIM was to make its network more
interesting to users and not, as some contended, to get existing members
to use up more paid online minutes. In its early days, users did pay AOL
by the minute, but by the time AIM came around it had gone to a flat
monthly fee, Appelman said.
Joe Raedle—Getty Images
But millions of those AIM users never paid AOL a dime, which probably
did not endear AIM to its corporate overlords. AIM was a quick-and-easy
(and free) download.
Many of those millions probably got siphoned off to rival chat apps, and
many Apple users let AIM go when Apple dropped support.
Related: AOL Instant Messenger is Going Away. Here are Your Options
And Why it Failed
AIM’s prospects weren’t helped by the arrival of me-too chat apps like
Yahoo Messenger and Microsoft (MSFT, +0.03%) MSN Messenger either. Then
there were a number of business-focused versions of chat, like Lotus
Sametime (now IBM (IBM, -0.14%) Sametime.)
The ironic thing there is that many AIM devotees saw its existence
outside of corporate IT as a huge benefit, not a flaw. “The day
corporate can track my messages, is the day I stop sending them,” one
colleague said years ago.
At the same time, Facebook adopted instant messaging by adding Facebook
Messenger, another AIM wannabe, to its social network.
Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.
The great thing about AIM, which tech news site TechCrunch referred to
as the “pioneering chat app that taught us to text,” was its seeming
simplicity and lack of bloat. If you had an Internet connection, it worked.
AIM showed you your Buddy List in a box, and who was available to chat.
You could set a “Do Not Disturb” sign or even will yourself invisible by
clicking on the little on-screen eyeball. It was a great tool for
stalking a buddy.
Compare that to most of today’s desktop apps that seem to do everything
except the one thing we want to them to do. Feature bloat makes many
modern software products too complicated for mere mortals to use. AIM
was the antithesis of that and that’s why it’s sad to hear of its
passing at the ripe old age of 20.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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