AIM (software)
AOL Instant Messenger was an instant messaging and presence information computer program created by AOL that operated from 1997 to 2017. It used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow users to communicate in real time.
AIM launched in May 1997 and became popular by the late 1990s; teens and college students were known to use the messenger's away message feature to keep in touch with friends, often frequently changing their away message throughout a day or leaving a message up with one's computer left on to inform buddies of their ongoings, location, parties, thoughts, or jokes.
AIM's popularity declined during the 2000s and 2010s as AOL subscribers started decreasing and as Gmail's Google Talk, SMS, and Internet social networks like Facebook gained popularity. Its fall has often been compared with other once-popular Internet services, such as Myspace. In June 2015, AOL was acquired by Verizon Communications. In June 2017, Verizon combined AOL and Yahoo into its subsidiary Oath Inc.. The company discontinued AIM as a service on December 15, 2017.
History
In May 1997, AIM was released unceremoniously as a stand-alone download for Microsoft Windows. AIM was an outgrowth of "online messages" in the original platform written in PL/1 on a Stratus computer by Dave Brown. At one time, the software had the largest share of the instant messaging market in North America, especially in the United States. This does not include other instant messaging software related to or developed by AOL, such as ICQ and iChat.During its heyday, its main competitors were ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger. AOL particularly had a rivalry or "chat war" with PowWow and Microsoft, starting in 1999. There were several attempts from Microsoft to simultaneously log into their own and AIM's protocol servers. AOL was unhappy about this and started blocking MSN Messenger from being able to access AIM. This led to efforts by many companies to challenge the AOL and Time Warner merger on the grounds of antitrust behaviour, leading to the formation of the OpenNet Coalition.
Official mobile versions of AIM appeared as early as 2001 on Palm OS through the AOL application. Third-party applications allowed it to be used in 2002 for the Sidekick. A version for Symbian OS was announced in 2003, as were others for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.
After 2012, stand-alone official AIM client software included advertisements and was available for Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile, Classic Mac OS, macOS, Android, iOS, and BlackBerry OS.
Usage decline and product sunset
After seeing its popularity peak between 1999 and 2005, AIM began to very slowly lose its daily active user base starting with the widespread adoption of SMS text messaging in the United States that had occurred over the same period followed by the quick rise of Gmail and its 2005 introduction of its built-in real-time chat feature Google Talk. By 2011, apps like Apple iMessage, social network messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, and mobile-first messaging apps such as WhatsApp had greatly reduced the user base of AIM and other desktop-centric competitors of its generation. AOL sought to compete by adding features such as integration with Google Talk and enabling inbound and outbound SMS text messaging between AIM and any mobile number.Despite this, one source reported in June 2011 that AOL Instant Messenger's market share had collapsed to 0.73%. However, this number only reflected installed IM applications, and not active users. The engineers responsible for AIM claimed that they were unable to convince AOL management that free was the future.
On March 3, 2012, AOL laid-off most of AIM's development staff while leaving the service active with help support still provided. On October 6, 2017, it was announced that the AIM service would be completely discontinued on December 15 of that year; however, a non-profit development team known as Wildman Productions started up a server for older versions of AOL Instant Messenger, known as AIM Phoenix.
The "Running Man"
The AIM mascot was designed by JoRoan Lazaro and was implemented in the first release in 1997. This was a yellow stickman-like figure, often called the "Running Man". AIM's popularity in the late 1990s and the 2000s led to the “Running Man” becoming a familiar brand on the Internet. After over 14 years, the iconic logo disappeared as part of the AIM rebranding in 2011. However, in August 2013, the "Running Man" returned. It was used for other AOL services like AOL Top Speed and is still featured in a theme on AOL Mail.In 2014, a Complex editor called it a "symbol of America". In April 2015, the Running Man was officially featured in the Virgin London Marathon, dressed by a person for the AOL-partnered Free The Children charity.
Protocol
The standard protocol that AIM clients used to communicate is called Open System for CommunicAtion in Realtime. Most AOL-produced versions of AIM and popular third party AIM clients use this protocol. However, AOL also created a simpler protocol called TOC that lacks many of OSCAR's features, but was sometimes used for clients that only require basic chat functionality. The TOC/TOC2 protocol specifications were made available by AOL, while OSCAR is a closed protocol that third parties had to reverse-engineer.In January 2008, AOL introduced experimental Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol support for AIM, allowing AIM users to communicate using the standardized, open-source XMPP. However, in March 2008, this service was discontinued. In May 2011, AOL started offering limited XMPP support. On March 1, 2017, AOL announced that the AOL XMPP gateway would be desupported, effective March 28, 2017.
Privacy
For privacy regulations, AIM had strict age restrictions. AIM accounts are available only for people over the age of 13; children younger than that were not permitted access to AIM. Under the AIM Privacy Policy, AOL had no rights to read or monitor any private communications between users. The profile of the user had no privacy.In November 2002, AOL targeted the corporate industry with Enterprise AIM Services, a higher security version of AIM.
If public content was accessed, it could be used for online, print or broadcast advertising, etc. This was outlined in the policy and terms of service: "... you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium". This allowed anything users posted to be used without a separate request for permission.
AIM's security was called into question. AOL stated that it had taken great pains to ensure that personal information will not be accessed by unauthorized members, but that it cannot guarantee that it will not happen.
AIM was different from other clients, such as Yahoo! Messenger, in that it did not require approval from users to be added to other users' buddy lists. As a result, it was possible for users to keep other unsuspecting users on their buddy list to see when they were online, read their status and away messages, and read their profiles. There was also a Web API to display one's status and away message as a widget on one's webpage. Though one could block a user from communicating with them and seeing their status, this did not prevent that user from creating a new account that would not automatically be blocked and therefore able to track their status. A more conservative privacy option was to select a menu feature that only allowed communication with users on one's buddy list; however, this option also created the side-effect of blocking all users who were not on one's buddy list. Users could also choose to be invisible to all.
On November 4, 2014, AIM scored one out of seven points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's secure messaging scorecard. AIM received a point for encryption during transit, but lost points because communications are not encrypted with a key to which the provider has no access, i.e., the communications are not end-to-end encrypted, users can't verify contacts' identities, past messages are not secure if the encryption keys are stolen,, the code is not open to independent review,, the security design is not properly documented, and there has not been a recent independent security audit. BlackBerry Messenger, Ebuddy XMS, Hushmail, Kik Messenger, Skype, Viber, and Yahoo! Messenger also scored one out of seven points.
Chat robots
AOL and various other companies supplied robots on AIM that could receive messages and send a response based on the bot's purpose. For example, bots could help with studying, like StudyBuddy. Some were made to relate to children and teenagers, like Spleak.Others gave advice. The more useful chat bots had features like the ability to play games, get sport scores, weather forecasts or financial stock information. Users were able to talk to automated chat bots that could respond to natural human language. They were primarily put into place as a marketing strategy and for unique advertising options. It was used by advertisers to market products or build better consumer relations.
Before the inclusions of such bots, the other bots DoorManBot and AIMOffline provided features that were provided by AOL for those who needed it. ZolaOnAOL and ZoeOnAOL were short-lived bots that ultimately retired their features in favor of SmarterChild.
URI scheme
AOL Instant Messenger's installation process automatically installed an extra URI scheme handler into some Web browsers, so URIs beginning withaim: could open a new AIM window with specified parameters. This was similar in function to the mailto: URI scheme, which created a new e-mail message using the system's default mail program. For instance, a webpage might have included a link like the following in its HTML source to open a window for sending a message to the AIM user notarealuser:<a href="aim:goim?screenname=notarealuser">Send Message</a>
To specify a message body, the
message parameter was used, so the link location would have looked like this:aim:goim?screenname=notarealuser&message=This+is+my+message
To specify an away message, the message parameter was used, so the link location would have looked like this:
aim:goaway?message=Hello,+my+name+is+Bill
When placing this inside a URL link, an AIM user could click on the URL link and the away message "Hello, my name is Bill" would instantly become their away message.
To add a buddy, the addbuddy message was used, with the "screenname" parameter
aim:addbuddy?screenname=notarealuser
This type of link was commonly found on forum profiles to easily add contacts.