AIM also had useful states. If you were away for a decent chunk of time (And you could configure what that amount of time was!) it would mark you as idle, and y

AIM also had useful states. If you were away for a decent chunk of time (And you could configure what that amount of time was!) it would mark you as idle, and you could set custom away messages (That were actually visible) so folks could know why you were away, or more realistically, what song was on your mind. Nowadays the status is completely meaningless. It's a small dot that doesn't accurately reflect your status, and if you choose to set a message, most of the apps hide it anyway.