America Online had the whole digital globe in its hands by the mid-1990s, but naught can last forever. AOL was founded in the early 80s equally Control Video Corporation, focusing exclusively on an online service for the Atari 2600. By the centre of the decade, however, management restructured the company as an online service provider for those new to the Cyberspace.

The Beginnings

This early Cyberspace venture was wildly successful, largely in function due to AOL's spider web portal for beginners which featured casual and archetype games, news and sports sections, conversation rooms, tips on finance, and more.

At a time when it wasn't readily apparent merely what to exercise once you'd gotten online, AOL's web portal served as a expert starting place for many.

One of my earliest computer memories involves AIM.

Arguably ane of the greatest tools to be spun out of the core AOL experience was its standalone instant messaging client, affectionately known every bit AIM. The program was quietly released in the jump of 1997 for Microsoft Windows, allowing users to annals an online handle, create buddy lists, and chat with friends in near real-time.

One of my earliest computer memories involves AIM. Information technology was 1998 and I'd just received my get-go estimator for Christmas. After the local ISP got me set up with a Road Runner cable modem, I was off to the races. Of course, the first thing I did was download AIM and connect with my all-time friend who lived a few minutes away. "Look mom, I'm chatting with Keith on the computer, and it'south live!" "Oh, that's swell…" she said before going dorsum into the living room, clearly non amused.

Equally for me, I was spellbound. Sure, I'd tinkered effectually in conversation rooms before but it was always with random people. Beingness able to run across when people you know in existent life signed on was next level cool.

Truth be told, it wasn't all that dissimilar from other chat apps similar ICQ, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger of the era. They all basically accomplished the same thing, letting y'all create buddy lists and conversation with pals.

AIM's Dingy Fiddling Secret

The biggest departure, and possibly the muddy little secret most AIM that yous may non know, is that AOL never commissioned its cosmos.

AIM was the brainchild of Barry Appelman, a Unix developer that had been hired by AOL in 1993. Unlike other companies of the era, AOL was unique in that it knew a lot about its business relationship holders, including when they logged on and which users they were. Appelman used this knowledge base to create the buddy listing, a tool that would show when users were online.

Afterward, he and 2 other co-workers used the buddy list as the foundation for an instant messaging tool that would become AIM, all without the blessing of AOL executives.

Needless to say, they weren't happy most the unsanctioned project. Specifically, executives didn't like that AIM went confronting its subscription-based model they had spent years developing. Somewhen, withal, the production team was able to convince executives to move forward and AIM was released in 1997 and defenseless on like wildfire.

Past 2001, AIM had reached 36 million active users and by 2007 when the iPhone arrived, the service had 63 million users. Those were impressive numbers, but certainly not dominant. Microsoft, for example, had managed to concenter 294 one thousand thousand users to its MSN Messenger service although that was more of a global audience, while AIM was a more US-centric affair in comparison.

Having triumphed Y2K, AOL and the Internet felt unstoppable. Simply as they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. And autumn, AOL did. Ane of its biggest shortcomings was handling the success of AIM and failing to realize the value of a gratuitous product.

The Mobile Revolution

The early part of the 2000s saw the proliferation of mobile devices. Nokia was an early leader in the jail cell phone movement with early adopters gobbling up the Nokia 5110 around the plow of the century. Motorola also had a hit with the original V3 Razr, all of which facilitated the growth of SMS. It didn't take long for text messaging on jail cell phones to skyrocket.

Later on, BlackBerry started trending among business organisation professionals that needed access to email on the go. And so in 2007, the inflow of the iPhone made information technology clear that the next generation of users were going to be communicating online primarily with their phones.

PC users had not gone anywhere, and they were still around and busy communicating with each other, merely even they were being targeted by social media companies like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and even Google, inviting people to chat with Google Chat via Gmail.

Courtesy old-schoolhouse AIM chat app project

AOL'south top brass never threw their weight behind AIM. The plan's pattern team reportedly came up with multiple innovative features behind closed doors, but most of them never fabricated it into public versions of the software.

To its credit, AOL did release a version of AIM for Palm devices, the iPhone and iPad Impact, but it was besides little, too late. While it technically worked, the magic of AIM didn't carry over. Unsurprisingly, it never caught on.

In early on 2022, AOL said it had wiped out its AIM staff as part of company-wide layoffs and by 2022, AOL said it would be finally closing the doors on its long-running chat programme. The plug was officially pulled on December fifteen, 2022.

Just, that's not quite the cease of the AIM story. After the main AIM was shut down, Wildman Productions, a non-profit gaming development team, resurrected the app as AIM Phoenix. Since it is no longer affiliated with AOL, you won't have access to your old buddy lists.

Phoenix screenshot

But, that gives you the opportunity to get-go afresh and possibly nab a proper name yous couldn't get before. Or, you could just register the name you lot used to use.

Legacy

It would be beyond naive to preach of a second coming of AIM or ICQ. Those programs had their time in the limelight, but their better years are far in the rearview at this point. Instead, it's most constructive to think these sorts of apps for what they did and what they taught us.

AIM and like conversation programs of the late 90s and early 2000s were instrumental in facilitating digital socializing for millions of early Cyberspace users.

We were pioneering the style forward with cutting-edge tech and that felt powerful at the fourth dimension, peculiarly for those that lacked traditional social skills.

Conversation apps taught us how to socialize with our peers while simultaneously building our keyboarding skills. I personally fostered several relationships online that I still maintain today, well over 20 years later on, some with people I've never met in person. Had information technology not been for programs like AIM, those people likely wouldn't be a part of my life today.

In a parallel reality, AOL execs could have put its full weight backside AIM and constitute a mode to dominate messaging and become what WhatsApp is today. Had that happened, maybe just maybe AOL would still be relevant today.

TechSpot'south "What Always Happened to..." Series

The story of software apps and companies that at one signal hit mainstream and were widely used, but are now gone. Nosotros cover the most prominent areas of their history, innovations, successes and controversies.

  • ICQ
  • WinAMP
  • Netscape
  • GameSpy
  • AIM
  • MSN Messenger
  • Flickr
  • Hotmail
  • GeoCities