LGR - AIM Retrospective: RIP 1997-2017
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
fanjoy
AIM's significance can't be overstated. Everybody had it. There was nothing wrong with it, which is incredibly rare (and has gotten much more so) Nothing that -replaced- it has been half as good or fun or special, and I can't figure out why they didn't simply remain on top. Make a mobile version, add any advanced new features whilst retaining what makes it uniquely irreplaceable. I just found proof in my email that it was going strong as of October 2009. Sometime afterward I was forced to make the same poor choices as everybody else on my buddy list, since chatting exclusively with SmarterChild and that other bot got a bit stale after a while. But fr, talk about devolution. Redundant pieces of junk that keep getting replaced by the next redundant piece of junk, with nary a strand of attachment forming. -
Otoh, AIM really was great. My friend and I excitedly chatted through the first annual Puppy Bowl in '05, four months before graduation. I recall my away message full of quotes from The Producers, a film/show I became obsessed with that year (and then named my dog Ulla the next. xD) Sigh. Profiles, away messages, your buddy list of friends and classmates and family. setting up private chat rooms for multiple people, then having it email a log of a particularly hilarious session for you to forward to them. winding up with a bunch of spare email addresses thanks to your proclivity for coming up with new screennames and using some to RP. But the thing that REALLY TRULY made it golden was the AIM Expressions. Practically infinite choices of icon or Superbuddy icon, wallpaper (including -wallmation- animated ones, emoji set, and sounds. Nothing compares to those--and I'm now kissing myself for saving a list and, pricelessly, an image of all my very favorite icons, wallpapers, etc. ESPECIALLY the SuperBuddies, because holy flapdoodle, why do we no longer have awesome and adorable pals to hang out with us during our conversations, moving about and responding to trigger words/emojis with their unique reactions? Why can I find so few images/videos featuring them? It would be an unthinkable tragedy for nobody to be able to look through them all again. I don't even remember the weird pixelated icons people apparently made loads of, but the Expressions were brilliantly beautiful, professionally designed creations. AIM was so simply and easily customizable/personalizable. -
I mean, I'm incessantly awash in nostalgia and pining for how much infinitely more excellent everything in the world used to be (save for GPS, I'll give 'em that)--even if I failed to fully appreciate it at the time. But the discovery that AIM can't even be downloaded anymore hit like a freight train.
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AIM's significance can't be overstated. Everybody had it. There was nothing wrong with it, which is incredibly rare (and has gotten much more so) Nothing that -replaced- it has been half as good or fun or special, and I can't figure out why they didn't simply remain on top. Make a mobile version, add any advanced new features whilst retaining what makes it uniquely irreplaceable. I just found proof in my email that it was going strong as of October 2009. Sometime afterward I was forced to make the same poor choices as everybody else on my buddy list, since chatting exclusively with SmarterChild and that other bot got a bit stale after a while. But fr, talk about devolution. Redundant pieces of junk that keep getting replaced by the next redundant piece of junk, with nary a strand of attachment forming. -
Otoh, AIM really was great. My friend and I excitedly chatted through the first annual Puppy Bowl in '05, four months before graduation. I recall my away message full of quotes from The Producers, a film/show I became obsessed with that year (and then named my dog Ulla the next. xD) Sigh. Profiles, away messages, your buddy list of friends and classmates and family. setting up private chat rooms for multiple people, then having it email a log of a particularly hilarious session for you to forward to them. winding up with a bunch of spare email addresses thanks to your proclivity for coming up with new screennames and using some to RP. But the thing that REALLY TRULY made it golden was the AIM Expressions. Practically infinite choices of icon or Superbuddy icon, wallpaper (including -wallmation- animated ones, emoji set, and sounds. Nothing compares to those--and I'm now kissing myself for saving a list and, pricelessly, an image of all my very favorite icons, wallpapers, etc. ESPECIALLY the SuperBuddies, because holy flapdoodle, why do we no longer have awesome and adorable pals to hang out with us during our conversations, moving about and responding to trigger words/emojis with their unique reactions? Why can I find so few images/videos featuring them? It would be an unthinkable tragedy for nobody to be able to look through them all again. I don't even remember the weird pixelated icons people apparently made loads of, but the Expressions were brilliantly beautiful, professionally designed creations. AIM was so simply and easily customizable/personalizable. -
I mean, I'm incessantly awash in nostalgia and pining for how much infinitely more excellent everything in the world used to be (save for GPS, I'll give 'em that)--even if I failed to fully appreciate it at the time. But the discovery that AIM can't even be downloaded anymore hit like a freight train.
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Righteously
AOL (owned now by Verizon) has decided to eliminate chat rooms from their service. Yet, surprisingly still charging people $4. 95 (plus tax) per month to use AOL desktop Gold. They claim that all other AOL features will still be available. Although, there are no other features of AOL that warrant the monthly fee. AOL Gold only provides three things- One is AOL email address which is free of charge. Second, the Desktop Gold provides hyperlinks to other websites. These websites can be accessed for free using any internet browser. Third, is other websites or other programs that advertise their services for a separate fee. All three of those, add no value or benefit to using the AOL Desktop Gold. I have thoroughly researched Desktop Gold and explored every corner and options available. The results were the three things that I just mentioned and nothing more. -
After leaving the AOL room, I was not able to get back in at Midnight on December 15th, 2020. Even the Community Listing was only showing the standard AOL warning message. The Warning message says as follows: -We're shutting down the AOL Desktop Gold chat rooms. As of December 15, 2020, members will no longer be able to use Chat Rooms. All other AOL Desktop Gold features will continue to function as expected, and there will be no other changes to your account or email service. For more information, Check out our help article. --
The first mistake AOL made was changing from AOL 9. 8 to AOL Desktop Gold. The old program ran a lot more smoothly, had less malware and more features on it. The second mistake was getting rid of Instant Messenger (IM. It allowed you to send an instant message to other AOL members. The third and final mistake is eliminating chat rooms. I think that AOL had the intention of doing all of this when they were bought out by Verizon. However, they would never disclose that because it makes them look bad. By phasing out features slowly, it has less of an impact on customers. That is the theory that I am proposing but cannot validate without proof. I do not think an alternative will appear, although I might look into Wireclub.
reply
AOL (owned now by Verizon) has decided to eliminate chat rooms from their service. Yet, surprisingly still charging people $4. 95 (plus tax) per month to use AOL desktop Gold. They claim that all other AOL features will still be available. Although, there are no other features of AOL that warrant the monthly fee. AOL Gold only provides three things- One is AOL email address which is free of charge. Second, the Desktop Gold provides hyperlinks to other websites. These websites can be accessed for free using any internet browser. Third, is other websites or other programs that advertise their services for a separate fee. All three of those, add no value or benefit to using the AOL Desktop Gold. I have thoroughly researched Desktop Gold and explored every corner and options available. The results were the three things that I just mentioned and nothing more. -
After leaving the AOL room, I was not able to get back in at Midnight on December 15th, 2020. Even the Community Listing was only showing the standard AOL warning message. The Warning message says as follows: -We're shutting down the AOL Desktop Gold chat rooms. As of December 15, 2020, members will no longer be able to use Chat Rooms. All other AOL Desktop Gold features will continue to function as expected, and there will be no other changes to your account or email service. For more information, Check out our help article. --
The first mistake AOL made was changing from AOL 9. 8 to AOL Desktop Gold. The old program ran a lot more smoothly, had less malware and more features on it. The second mistake was getting rid of Instant Messenger (IM. It allowed you to send an instant message to other AOL members. The third and final mistake is eliminating chat rooms. I think that AOL had the intention of doing all of this when they were bought out by Verizon. However, they would never disclose that because it makes them look bad. By phasing out features slowly, it has less of an impact on customers. That is the theory that I am proposing but cannot validate without proof. I do not think an alternative will appear, although I might look into Wireclub.
reply
Terra
NEWS: Discord blasts off with new mic test.
I still remember my dad using AIM back in 2010 and it was very fond to me when I first saw it, and my little brain was blown about this, when I was that age I didn't know anything about technology, but then 4 years later I started using a computer, and I was shocked by the features it had, it was a windows 7 but I never used AIM because I forgot about it, then I saw Animator vs. Animation II, and it was amazing when Alan was talking to his friend about the stick figure problem, and it was awesome, but I decided not to use it. But still today this broke my heart since yester year on Dec 15 2018, it was year 1 since it closed down.
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NEWS: Discord blasts off with new mic test.
I still remember my dad using AIM back in 2010 and it was very fond to me when I first saw it, and my little brain was blown about this, when I was that age I didn't know anything about technology, but then 4 years later I started using a computer, and I was shocked by the features it had, it was a windows 7 but I never used AIM because I forgot about it, then I saw Animator vs. Animation II, and it was amazing when Alan was talking to his friend about the stick figure problem, and it was awesome, but I decided not to use it. But still today this broke my heart since yester year on Dec 15 2018, it was year 1 since it closed down.
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LGR
Correction: Pidgin shouldn't have been grouped in with the other chat services since it's not a separate protocol or anything. It's closer to Trillian in that it lumps a bunch of IM services together into one client. I did, however, use it around the same time as those I listed so it seems I got my memories mixed up, sorry!
EDIT: There also seems to be confusion from saying ICQ is a later service than AOL Instant Messenger. While it's true it predated the public AIM launch by several months, AOL's Instant Messenger/Buddy List chat was released with AOL in 1989. AIM was simply the standalone version of the existing chat, which predated ICQ by 7 years.
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Correction: Pidgin shouldn't have been grouped in with the other chat services since it's not a separate protocol or anything. It's closer to Trillian in that it lumps a bunch of IM services together into one client. I did, however, use it around the same time as those I listed so it seems I got my memories mixed up, sorry!
EDIT: There also seems to be confusion from saying ICQ is a later service than AOL Instant Messenger. While it's true it predated the public AIM launch by several months, AOL's Instant Messenger/Buddy List chat was released with AOL in 1989. AIM was simply the standalone version of the existing chat, which predated ICQ by 7 years.
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dorpth
TWICE during this video, I heard the AIM and ICQ new message sounds and reflexively alt+tab'd to desktop to see what new message I had gotten. Maybe it was that hot girl down the dorm hall I had a crush on and gave given my screen name to last week!
God though, all those late 90s to mid 00s college nights of trying to sleep but there was always SOME asshole in the dorm AIM chatting at 1am with the volume turned all the way up and couldn't figure out how to disable sound for every single sent/received message.
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TWICE during this video, I heard the AIM and ICQ new message sounds and reflexively alt+tab'd to desktop to see what new message I had gotten. Maybe it was that hot girl down the dorm hall I had a crush on and gave given my screen name to last week!
God though, all those late 90s to mid 00s college nights of trying to sleep but there was always SOME asshole in the dorm AIM chatting at 1am with the volume turned all the way up and couldn't figure out how to disable sound for every single sent/received message.
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Kristinapedia
There was once a client, prgram, whatever that was a complement to aim. I can't remember the title. It either had a the word planet in it or one of the planets in it's name. You'd leave a link in your -about- section and it would take you to a website. I wish I could remember. if anyone remembers what it was please reply!
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There was once a client, prgram, whatever that was a complement to aim. I can't remember the title. It either had a the word planet in it or one of the planets in it's name. You'd leave a link in your -about- section and it would take you to a website. I wish I could remember. if anyone remembers what it was please reply!
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amoretto
The decline of AIM really sums up the decline of PCs altogether. Had they still been as popular as they were 15 year ago I think AIM would be as well, since it would still be better than using any other chat service. Unfortunately, the rise of smartphones is what really killed AIM, as they really rendered it useless.
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The decline of AIM really sums up the decline of PCs altogether. Had they still been as popular as they were 15 year ago I think AIM would be as well, since it would still be better than using any other chat service. Unfortunately, the rise of smartphones is what really killed AIM, as they really rendered it useless.
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Shock
In case anybody'd like to relive some nostalgia (or if you'd like to be able to capture some footage from older versions of AIM, Clint, I think people might be interested to know some fans have tried to keep AIM alive on a new network. Google -AIM Phoenix- and enjoy a brief respite to the good old days.
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In case anybody'd like to relive some nostalgia (or if you'd like to be able to capture some footage from older versions of AIM, Clint, I think people might be interested to know some fans have tried to keep AIM alive on a new network. Google -AIM Phoenix- and enjoy a brief respite to the good old days.
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Cruiseomatic
Lets just face it, Computers just aren't as fun as they once were. Now they're essentially boring and bland. Granted, We have -high speed- access and no longer angered with dropped connections when that annoying telemarketer would call, But, Overall PC these days plain suck.
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Lets just face it, Computers just aren't as fun as they once were. Now they're essentially boring and bland. Granted, We have -high speed- access and no longer angered with dropped connections when that annoying telemarketer would call, But, Overall PC these days plain suck.
reply
The
Use to log into mine up right before they shut it down. How I remembered my password I will never know lol. It was like going to an abandoned city. You could see signs that there was once life, but now it's just a ghost town with only relics to let us know it was once busy.
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Use to log into mine up right before they shut it down. How I remembered my password I will never know lol. It was like going to an abandoned city. You could see signs that there was once life, but now it's just a ghost town with only relics to let us know it was once busy.
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