4 ms·

AOL Instant Messenger: A Eulogy (2017)

31 points by podiki 5y ago

jcpham2 5y ago
I miss AIM :(
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  AIM gave me an unrealistic expectation of how easy it would be to chat with people with minimal interference (multi-chat XMPP clients like Adium/Pidgin that could handle AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and the earlier FB messenger and gchat, all at once with one UI were fantastic) and how easy it would be to send files to people (AIM had unlimited size file transfers, you could just send people files with zero hassle).
  - mdavis6890 5y ago
    Chat apps are worse now than they were in the past. Aside from what you mention, I yearn for a desktop-native client, not browser based or Electron.
    - mixmastamyk 5y ago
      Pidgin still exists.
  - adamrezich 5y ago
    I had completely forgotten about AIM's file transfers! an absolute godsend when making music and Flash videos with friends in middle school
- robflynn 5y ago
  Me too. I wouldn't be where I am today without it. That's such a strange thing to think about. I got on AIM right around the time it came out, so tail end of high school for me. I had been doing some programming, linux, script kiddy, basic web development stuff for a few years but nothing too serious. At some point I switched fully to Linux and couldn't use AIM anymore. I found gaim which was AIM-only at the time. I installed that and began using it and eventually ran into some bugs or missing features and decided to begin contributing. This eventually led to me becoming an official part of the gaim team and, eventually, moving across the country to work and live together at a start-up in Southern California (they hired the team, as well as the lead developer from competing/friend project Everybuddy). I eventually became lead developer of the project and continued to build out features and a development team. Managing/maintaining a popular open source project was such an impactful moment on my life, especially coming from a small rural town where I never really thought about things like that. I ended up retiring from the project around the time the naming dispute was happening and the project was becoming Pidgin due, well, due to a few things, mostly burn out and some personal life issues, but was with the project in some fashion for about 9-10 years. Going to linux shows, doing a few interviews, working with and living with my friends, playing with linux / open source software all the time, having gaim-dev meetups, getting paid to do what I love... I was thinking about this a few weeks ago, but that timespan is my fondest. I have so many great memories from then and I wouldn't trade it for anything. All that because of a chat program.
  - yuppie_scum 5y ago
    Pidgin was a pretty cool way to keep various chats integrated, I suppose that option is just gone these days. Thanks for your work on that.
acheron 5y ago
The 'incoming text' sound on my phone is the AIM message received ding.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  What's the easiest way to get custom sounds on an iPhone these days? I remember getting a 'mosquito ringtone' many years ago, and it was not easy to transfer. I assume things are easier now?
  - acheron 5y ago
    It's been awhile since I did it but I thought it was just connect it to a computer and transfer it with iTunes, the same way I load music. (Because I still listen to music stored locally, like the cavemen did.)
    - gnicholas 5y ago
      Ha, sounds like it hasn't changed much. Fortunately I am also a caveman so that works for me!
tegiddrone 5y ago
The status indicator actually meant something when you had to "sign on" and "sign off." You were available; tying up your phone line. Now I don't trust the green bubble with availability with modern messengers. Maybe they just turned on their phone for a minute to check a post/email and are busy again. So I ignore it mostly. ~ I remember setting special alerts for people when they would sign on, setting schedules explicit or implicit to talk to people. Maybe we need to revisit how to intentionally capture presence in our messengers.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  I also miss the status indicator and away messages from AIM days. I remember thinking that I wished FB had away messages, and then I realized that of course they never would because it runs counter to FB's desire for you to constantly be posting new updates for people to engage with. With AIM, you just rotated between 'available' and various custom/preset away messages. People would use FB much less if that's how it was. To be fair, maybe Messenger has/will get these features at some point? I have no idea but I hate Messenger and how FB pushes it on us so I avoid it at all costs.
  - milkytron 5y ago
    I don't use FB, but the status indicator is available in other messaging platforms that I've used lately (Slack and Teams). I really appreciate it when people set their status, like when they go away for lunch, are running an errand, or working from home (pre-covid). If you're tired of FB and their messenger, you could always delete your account ;)
    - gnicholas 5y ago
      I would delete Messenger if I could. I'm not completely opposed to FB but have been using it less and less. I've considered posting a status update that is essentially an 'away message', letting people know I'm 'away' from FB and letting them know they can reach me another way.
  - philwelch 5y ago
hivacruz 5y ago
I miss the AOL Chatrooms (running on the same protocol), it was a lot of fun. There was a popular game called "scrambler" running on some channels where people had to guess the quickest they could the word/sentence that was "scrambled". IIRC, you could talk with people on AOL with AIM but some AOL public chatrooms were not available from AIM. I remember the private chatrooms on AIM where you could download mp3s or other things, so many memories. I started coding with AOL/AIM and VB6.
- dqv 5y ago
  Haha. I didn't really know much about programming at that time, so I got programs from lenshell to host scrambler or to fade my text.
pram 5y ago
A eulogy indeed. I used AIM from middle school (~1998) to its shutdown. One of my friends, who got me into computers in the first place really, was a typical AOL script kiddie. He would phish accounts and use progs and all the other miscreant stuff that went on back then. I thought it was so cool, and I wouldn't be who I am today without him or AIM/AOL. Our only means of communication after high school remained AIM. He killed himself in 2016, and I'd just stare at his name in the offline list sometimes. Now AIM is permanently in the offline list too. RIP
podiki 5y ago
So many memories! Really was a center for life in that late 90s early 00s in so many ways. I remember when you could see when someone was typing (what technology!) and some programs would pop up the message box before they hit send so you knew a message was incoming. And then you could freak them out about how you knew they were thinking about you :-P (And that's where I first encountered the sideways emojis, still my goto over the new fangled ones)

31 points by podiki 5y ago

jcpham2 5y ago

I miss AIM :(

MiddleEndian 5y ago
AIM gave me an unrealistic expectation of how easy it would be to chat with people with minimal interference (multi-chat XMPP clients like Adium/Pidgin that could handle AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and the earlier FB messenger and gchat, all at once with one UI were fantastic) and how easy it would be to send files to people (AIM had unlimited size file transfers, you could just send people files with zero hassle).
- mdavis6890 5y ago
  Chat apps are worse now than they were in the past. Aside from what you mention, I yearn for a desktop-native client, not browser based or Electron.
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    Pidgin still exists.
- adamrezich 5y ago
  I had completely forgotten about AIM's file transfers! an absolute godsend when making music and Flash videos with friends in middle school
robflynn 5y ago
Me too. I wouldn't be where I am today without it. That's such a strange thing to think about. I got on AIM right around the time it came out, so tail end of high school for me. I had been doing some programming, linux, script kiddy, basic web development stuff for a few years but nothing too serious. At some point I switched fully to Linux and couldn't use AIM anymore. I found gaim which was AIM-only at the time. I installed that and began using it and eventually ran into some bugs or missing features and decided to begin contributing. This eventually led to me becoming an official part of the gaim team and, eventually, moving across the country to work and live together at a start-up in Southern California (they hired the team, as well as the lead developer from competing/friend project Everybuddy). I eventually became lead developer of the project and continued to build out features and a development team. Managing/maintaining a popular open source project was such an impactful moment on my life, especially coming from a small rural town where I never really thought about things like that. I ended up retiring from the project around the time the naming dispute was happening and the project was becoming Pidgin due, well, due to a few things, mostly burn out and some personal life issues, but was with the project in some fashion for about 9-10 years. Going to linux shows, doing a few interviews, working with and living with my friends, playing with linux / open source software all the time, having gaim-dev meetups, getting paid to do what I love... I was thinking about this a few weeks ago, but that timespan is my fondest. I have so many great memories from then and I wouldn't trade it for anything. All that because of a chat program.
- yuppie_scum 5y ago
  Pidgin was a pretty cool way to keep various chats integrated, I suppose that option is just gone these days. Thanks for your work on that.

acheron 5y ago

The 'incoming text' sound on my phone is the AIM message received ding.

gnicholas 5y ago
What's the easiest way to get custom sounds on an iPhone these days? I remember getting a 'mosquito ringtone' many years ago, and it was not easy to transfer. I assume things are easier now?
- acheron 5y ago
  It's been awhile since I did it but I thought it was just connect it to a computer and transfer it with iTunes, the same way I load music. (Because I still listen to music stored locally, like the cavemen did.)
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    Ha, sounds like it hasn't changed much. Fortunately I am also a caveman so that works for me!

tegiddrone 5y ago

The status indicator actually meant something when you had to "sign on" and "sign off." You were available; tying up your phone line. Now I don't trust the green bubble with availability with modern messengers. Maybe they just turned on their phone for a minute to check a post/email and are busy again. So I ignore it mostly. ~ I remember setting special alerts for people when they would sign on, setting schedules explicit or implicit to talk to people. Maybe we need to revisit how to intentionally capture presence in our messengers.

gnicholas 5y ago
I also miss the status indicator and away messages from AIM days. I remember thinking that I wished FB had away messages, and then I realized that of course they never would because it runs counter to FB's desire for you to constantly be posting new updates for people to engage with. With AIM, you just rotated between 'available' and various custom/preset away messages. People would use FB much less if that's how it was. To be fair, maybe Messenger has/will get these features at some point? I have no idea but I hate Messenger and how FB pushes it on us so I avoid it at all costs.
- milkytron 5y ago
  I don't use FB, but the status indicator is available in other messaging platforms that I've used lately (Slack and Teams). I really appreciate it when people set their status, like when they go away for lunch, are running an errand, or working from home (pre-covid). If you're tired of FB and their messenger, you could always delete your account ;)
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    I would delete Messenger if I could. I'm not completely opposed to FB but have been using it less and less. I've considered posting a status update that is essentially an 'away message', letting people know I'm 'away' from FB and letting them know they can reach me another way.
- philwelch 5y ago

hivacruz 5y ago

I miss the AOL Chatrooms (running on the same protocol), it was a lot of fun. There was a popular game called "scrambler" running on some channels where people had to guess the quickest they could the word/sentence that was "scrambled". IIRC, you could talk with people on AOL with AIM but some AOL public chatrooms were not available from AIM. I remember the private chatrooms on AIM where you could download mp3s or other things, so many memories. I started coding with AOL/AIM and VB6.

dqv 5y ago
Haha. I didn't really know much about programming at that time, so I got programs from lenshell to host scrambler or to fade my text.

pram 5y ago

A eulogy indeed. I used AIM from middle school (~1998) to its shutdown. One of my friends, who got me into computers in the first place really, was a typical AOL script kiddie. He would phish accounts and use progs and all the other miscreant stuff that went on back then. I thought it was so cool, and I wouldn't be who I am today without him or AIM/AOL. Our only means of communication after high school remained AIM. He killed himself in 2016, and I'd just stare at his name in the offline list sometimes. Now AIM is permanently in the offline list too. RIP

podiki 5y ago

So many memories! Really was a center for life in that late 90s early 00s in so many ways. I remember when you could see when someone was typing (what technology!) and some programs would pop up the message box before they hit send so you knew a message was incoming. And then you could freak them out about how you knew they were thinking about you :-P (And that's where I first encountered the sideways emojis, still my goto over the new fangled ones)