Happy
20th birthday to my
first true love: AOL's Instant Messenger
/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F463383%2F89dc89b3-4b5a-4178-8ea6-bd643090dba4.png)
Long before we had umpteen different online profiles, there was AIM.*
In the heady days of 1997, when AOL
Instant Messenger came into the world, there was **thing else like it. Conceived within the hallowed halls of AOL, AIM introduced a large swath of early internet consumers to an idea that would be seized on by any number of multi-billion-dollar companies: You, but online.*
Twenty years later, there's still something about AIM. It came out just as average consumers were starting to get online en masse. And instead of presenting users with a**ther random message board where one might converse with strangers, AIM was about connecting with IRL friends through your curated "buddy list" — an idea so singular, AOL even patented it.
Read more...
More about
Business,
Messaging,
Aim,
Instant Messaging, and
Aol