AIM Finally Bites The Dust

AIM Finally Bites The Dust

AIM ends its long run, and believe it or not, there was a time when it was the most popular chat service. Sure, most of the users were bots, and the Spam was insane at times. My only question is, "What took so long?"

In March 2012, AOL declared it was killing AIM and canning the 40 employees that worked on the project. So...it's just been limping along with no updates for the last five years? Those 40 employees must be proud because no one noticed the zero updates.

Facebook Messenger ultimately killed off any real reason to keep using AIM. Will there be anything that will be missed? Maybe a few things...

  1. The "Away Message" was a thing of art back when modems were king of the connection. Once broadband came into play, you were "always logged in," so an away message was a way to troll your friends when you weren't there.
  2. The "ASL" reference (Age, Sex, Location) as the person you were chatting with was usually a complete stranger. Oh, and almost everyone lied about their ASL.
  3. The sheer simplicity of AIM is what made non-AOL users use it.
  4. Instead of asking for a person's number, you'd get their AIM screen name.

For those marketers out there to purchase XRumer, a Russian-made software program, the only way to buy it was through AIM during a 15-minute window. Since the software was known as a "black hat" tool, it had a certain spy element.

AIM Instant Messanger
AIM Messanger Online

Also See: Larry Benedict's One Ticker Tracker Retirement System Review

AOL AIM and ASL or A/S/L Usage

On AOL, "A/S/L" was an abbreviation commonly used in chat rooms and instant messaging to ask another user their age, sex, and location. It stood for "age, sex, location" and was often used as an icebreaker or to start a conversation with a stranger. Users would typically respond with their age, sex, and location, and the conversation would continue from there.

The use of A/S/L was prevalent during the early days of the Internet, when online chat rooms and instant messaging were becoming more popular. However, it gradually fell out of use as the internet became more mainstream and people became more cautious about sharing personal information online. Today, it is generally not recommended to share personal information with strangers online, and many online platforms have policies in place to discourage or prohibit sharing personal information in public forums.