The idea of always on, always transmitting captured the feeling quite well. The running yellow figure of AIM’s logo seems fitting in retrospect. Companies like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram are some of the major players who have ridden that wave. AIM was the starting point of an exponential trend in social web startups. Perhaps more than any other product, AIM helped establish the internet as a place to hang out rather than a simple utility.Įntrepreneurs realized that, too. The one problem I have is with the FUCKING RETARDED away messages people leave. It's a hell of a lot easier than having to call someone and actually pretend to give a shit about what they're telling you. It defined the social potential of the web for Americans. So, first, let me say that I think AIM is great. It was a digital consumer tool used at an unprecedented scale, a household name. The Running ManĪIM could be considered the first social media superpower. It was all about the contact with other human beings over the internet in a real, direct, private, and personal way. Things like late night chats with your best friend about the latest music or deliberately worded conversations with that girl or boy you had a crush on. This is where communication and real human connection actually happened. The underlying concepts of Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, and Snapchat all began with AIM. It’s still something we can’t get enough of 20 years later. Social media doesn’t work without these groups of real people and it all originated with the Buddy List. Followers, friends, whatever they’re called. Think about what’s at the foundation of any social media you use today. AOL didn’t know it back then, and we don’t realize it today, but AIM is the father of our modern social web.ĭon’t believe me? Let’s start with the Buddy List. Today, AOL Instant Messenger is shutting down for good, 20 years after it launched.īut what it established lives on. The world had never seen anything like it. You can probably reminisce about competing for time on the home computer so you could chat with your friends.
Aim away messages install#
You likely recall the AIM install CD, your screen name, and how much effort went into your carefully crafted away messages. If you were a 90’s kid, chances are you remember what a Buddy List was.
The invention implements a real time notification system that tracks, for each user, the logon status of selected co-users of an on-line or network system and displays that information in real time to the tracking user in a unique graphical interface. The first words of the patent abstract explained: They called it the “Buddy List.” It was the heart of the digital social structure that formed AOL Instant Messenger. Someone genius out there created an Instagram account called Modern Away and, it’s basically today’s thoughts put into the old school format of AIM away messages. What would our away messages look like now Well I’m glad you asked. On a cold February morning in 1997, America Online filed a patent for something that was to become the basis of hundreds of social tech startups. Now, we’re adults in the real world, getting the Sunday Scaries and paying bills.