[jamix]

> Why is AIM shutting down?

> We know there are so many loyal fans who have used AIM for decades; and we loved working and building the first chat app of its kind since 1997. Our focus will always be on providing the kind of innovative experiences consumers want. We’re more excited than ever to focus on building the next generation of iconic brands and life-changing products.

Corporate BS-speak at its best. Three sentences and 0% answering the question.

[paulryanrogers]

"...first chat app of its kind since 1997"

Wasn't ICQ the same kind of chat app?

[scott_s]

Not the same kind, though the difference was subtle, and maybe not an important distinction to most people. In ICQ, you sent discrete messages back and forth. You could (I believe) look at the last message while replying, but you didn't have a chat history integrated into the same window where you replied. I used both ICQ and AIM in the '90s and early 2000s, even talking to the same people, and the interactions felt very different. ICQ felt like it was between email and AIM in the communication spectrum: obviously interactive and real-time, but each person tended to say more in each message. AIM's style encouraged more call-response conversations.

I point this out because I think it's an interesting case of user-interface design influencing use, even though on the surface they're both "chat apps."

[52-6F-62]

I still have my ICQ number burned into my brain. There are other, more important, numbers I should be remembering and at times cannot, but that ICQ number is there.

[adamcharnock]

Tangent for UK people: I have the emergency services number from The IT Crowd burned into my brain too: 01189998819991197253

WHY?!

[huxley]

Well, that's easy to remember!

[sixstringtheory]

US person here, singing the song in my head as I read your comment :)

[52-6F-62]

There it is—my yearly reminder to rewatch that show. Cheers.

[nasredin]

I was quite proud of my 7-digit (in ICQ world, the SMALLER the UIN (why do I still remember these acronyms!) the BIGGER your penis was) ICQ number that started with 404.

404. Quite clever, eh? I guess there was a lot more HTTP 404 errors back then.

---

Yes, I too remember my ICQ number but not the birthdays of... I PLEAD THE FIFTH YOUR HONOR!

[emidln]

I do too, but I have no idea what my password is.

[digi_owl]

I seem to recall that the ICQ window had a multiple modes.

One of them was individual messages, but another allowed each party to see what the other was typing in real time.

Also, if one want to talk about chat histories one should not forget about IRC.

[nasredin]

Hmmm.

I thought they were both instant messengers, just AIM was more popular in US and ICQ was more popular in Israel and Eastern Europe.

One distinct feature AIM had were the IRC-like chat rooms.

---

You may be confused WRT an ICQ "offline messaging" feature, which IIRC allowed one to send messages to offline contacts, who would see the message when they signed in.

---

Also in case you didn't know: ICQ is a (too lazy) of "I Seek You".

[scott_s]

They were both "instant messengers." But their interface was different enough to lead to different behavior.

[kinkrtyavimoodh]

The worst part is they didn't even have to include this question. Including it and then giving such a bullshit non-answer is like a slap on the reader's face.

[0xJRS]

Speaking a lot and saying nothing.

[yashap]

This reads exactly like a politician getting asked a tough question, and dodging the answer. Except nobody asked, they’re dodging questions that THEY WROTE THEMSELVES. You know you’re a PR drone when ...

[thiagooffm]

so shitty, they didn't give a SINGLE REASON

[empath75]

I can give you the reason.

Everybody at aol stopped using it years ago for internal communication and switched to slack.

The team had also been cut down to a skeleton crew a long time ago and they stopped development on it.

The reason why they are killing it as opposed to letting it hang around for ever is that aol has been in a multi-year long process of moving everything to AWS and due to the way aim is architected, it would be a major development effort to make the move, and they just don't want to spend the money.

I'm going to guess the mail product will also face a similar end for similar reasons.

[wincy]

I was amazed the other day to discover my favorite board game publisher, Rio Grande Games, has the email address (posted in their games as of 2017) of [e-mail], which really surprised me. I wonder if they're still making money off of AOL email accounts?

[fps]

Verizon bought AOL in 2015 [0] and has recently started discontinuing their ISP provided @verizon.net email addresses and servers[1] in favor of @aol.com addresses.

0: https://www.wsj.com/articles/verizon-to-buy-aol-for-4-4-bill... 1: https://help.aol.com/products/aol-mail-verizon

[heywire]

Just this week I've emailed with some contractors for some repairs at my house. Two of the three I received emails from came from an @aol.com email address.

[empath75]

They sell ads on it. I think they’ll keep the email addresses and use the yahoo mail back end.

[nasredin]

@aol.com is popular with the "hipster" / "techbro" crowd here.

[ghaff]

Because it's pretty much the same single unspoken reason for just about any decision of this general type. It didn't make business sense any longer.