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AOL Shuts Down 3rd Party IM Software?
David Gervais noted that AOL has begun shutting out third party IM software (among other things, breaking the Linux clones). Their error message is "AOL IMer Client: Gaim CVS Version.
09:24:11 AOL Instant Messenger: You have been disconnected from the AOL Instant Message Service (SM) for accessing the AOL network using unauthorized software." Can someone confirm this, or is Mr Gervais on something here? I've had several folks say they can get through just fine. Perhaps this is just a Gaim CVS bug? Update: 09/11 05:12 PM by C : Have tested AIM connectivity with Gaim v0.9.20 and Everybuddy 0.1.4 with no problems. Sorry for the scare.
if they only want their client to talk to their server, they are entitled. This may suck for everyone in the short term,
certainly they are entitled to want that, but it is questionable whether they are legally entitled to have that, and doubly questionable whether they should be legally entitled to have that. Consider the telephone. It used to be that you could only connect a Bell telephone to the one company's circuits. Now you can connect any kind to a choice of servers, and the world is unquestionably a better place. The changeover required a change in the law and it took 100 years. That did suck for everyone, and lets not repeat it.
but alternatives will prevail if they stay closed.
Not necessarily. This industry, like the telephone, could be an example of a natural monopoly, in which case it takes active opposition/regulation to keep it open, cheap, and innovative.
No, actually it's here.
- Mike
This point seems to be forgotten in every discussion brought up involving AOL. There are two protocols that AIM can use, the proprietary one that AOL's Windows Clients use (and M$ insists on using, hence their being kicked off of it), and the TOC protocol, which is the open-source equivalent. The reason that GAIM users are currently being kicked off is that they were recently given the option in the configuration setup to choose which protocol to use, and chose the proprietary one, which is an unauthorized connection. If you switch back to TOC, which is the default in such OSS programs as TiK, you won't have any problems connecting. How is it that this point is fore-gone during every IM discussion? I really don't know.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
AOL has had a linux beta out for a few months now. You can find it here
JOIN !LINK CLUB!
In case anyone cares to stop bickering, AOL already has an official Linux client in the works here. Have fun!
/. zen: Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beowulf clusters...
Hello, All. Rob Flynn here, Gaim Maintainer and leader devleoper. We have, on some occasions, experienced this as well. It only happens, however, when using our experimental oscar support. Our Oscar support is based on a package called libfaim. This is a somewhat reverse engineered library that allows anyone to use the OSCAR server. AOL has recently started blocking libfaim. Note: They are not blocking the clients theselves it appears to only be this library. I spoke with several people at AOL and learned that the TOC servers would not be affected. (I guess we can still expect the occasional TOC-Burp that we all experience from time to time). If anyone has any questions on this matter, please feel free to let me know. Thanks and Take Care, Rob PS: Gaim 0.10.0 was released this morn' :-)
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Rob Flynn
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Rob Flynn
Pidgin
The same as in the great CueCat debate.
How is AOL going to make money?
AOL thinks there are lots of ways to make money on messaging. One of their executives is quoted as saying that Instant Messaging is AOL's most important asset.
But clearly, they think they can only succeed if they control the client as well as the servers. And a route into their system where they don't control the client is apparently unacceptable to them.
Happy Premise #3: Even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won't.
I don't understand what the big deal is here...why are so many linux clients using the AOL private protocol, when AOL relased a public protocol (TOC) that works just fine? Not only does the public protocol still work, it also supports storing buddy lists on the server, which is a very nice feature.
As far as I know, however, only tik and tac use TOC. All the other stuff uses the half-working, mostly-broken, half-implemented FAIM implementation of AOL's private protocol. Is everyone just crazy, or what?
I don't blame AOL for breaking support for their private protocol. Just use the public one. Its there, it works. What's the big deal?
AFAIK, there are two AIM protocols... There is TOC which was the original protocol and was later open-sourced so that other people could write clients (like AOL's old Tk client). Then there is OSCAR, which is the better protocol that has more features, but has no docs behind it.
Reportedly, AOL has been talking about closing their TOC servers for a while now, and my guess is that they finally did that. Clients which use OSCAR (this includes everybuddy) are unaffected.
There's more info in the Everybuddy FAQ.
Please note that the above "facts" are all based on heresay and conjecture.
Cool. Lets sue AOl and claim they are denying access for NON-handicapped Americans (ie. Not Windoze users).
Sig it.
I am the author of jaim (www.freshmeat.net/projects/jaim) and AOL _WAS_ blocking clients. This is entirely true. I had to spoof TiK to get my client to work.
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a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
But that trick never works!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Well, I use GAIM on my SGI Octane and I use AOL's own IM client on my Win box and what I say after this is sure to tick some people off. Let me first start off by saying that I am relatively neutral to this argument of open vs closed AOL IM access. The fact of the matter is that AOL did invent this platform and they run the servers that authenticate users. First off, the servers aren't free and any and all additional traffic they handle from third party apps comes without any revenue to support the costs while AOL's own client has ads that defray these costs and basically pay its way. Secondly, since AOL created this platform, why should they be forced to open it up? A good analogy to this would be that you started a really cool club that anyone could join, but a rival club that came out after most people already joined the cool one isn't as big and is jealous. The little club that came out with theirs years later is mad that they have less members so instead of trying to make an even better club they complain that the big cool club should share its members. Just something to think about...
If they only want their client to talk to their server, they are entitled. This may suck for everyone in the short term, but alternatives will prevail if they stay closed.
It's not to tear down M$ - they want to BE the next M$.
This means they will want to confine and control you. Make you use their product because others aren't compatible. TO talk to their users, you have to use their software and see their ads. Your information will get recorded by them, and sold to anyone willing to pay them the $ they ask.
If the AOL/TW merger goes through - expect to see TW Cable saturated with AOL ads (and you thought they were bad now!) - expect RoadRunner service to go down the toilet and for prices to rise. Expect MORE spam - not less. Expect the spam to come in MORE formats - email, on-screen, TV, etc...
AOL's philosophy has been to spam since the beginning. Spamming people's snail-mailboxes with disks, and later CDs - spamming their users with ads for products they could probably care less about - spamming TV stations with ads (sometimes that play 2-3 times in a row) to make sure you repeat their name in your sleep. It's a not-so-subtle form of mind control - and it's working on the masses. They believe ANYTHING that AOL tells them. "We respect your privacy" - BULL$#!^ - the only thing AOL respects is the almighty dollar - and they'll do anything to get it.
I'm off-topic now...let's get back on...
Linux clients made by 3rd parties don't display AOL's ads to users. They don't track the user's habits and report back to AOL. They don't do ANYTHING other than be a messaging client.
And thus AOL can make NO money off of them.
So AOL shuts them out. People can't use them - so they'll use the "official" AOL software that makes AOL money. At least, that's AOL's opinion on the matter.
The linux community, however, will probably not conform to AOL's wishes - reverse engineering will get the clients back into the system, and linux users will be happy and ad-free.
AOL will change their "authentication" checks again.
Linux clients will reverse-engineer them and get back in.
Lather, rinse, repeat. It's the same $#!^ that they pulled with M$'s messenger program - except now it's hitting closer to home.
should bid on F*ckedCompany.com
Nuts .
For those who don't know the historical reference, pop open the nearest history book and flip to the WWII section. =) All this means is that now we're going to change the version the software reports and recompile. w00t, big deal, hardly worth a post to /..
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I seem to remember seeing a piece about a software project that allows AOL IM clients to connect to an IRC server an then send and receive messages via that. It seemed to be an addon for the ircd running (so you must be the owner of the IRC server to make this work.)
Perhaps something like this will allow us to use IM clients without having to go through AOL's servers. Seems like a good alternative for me.
Although personally, I don't use a IM client of any flavor. I prefer real, live IRC (because I don't have any friends).
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
AOL is not shutting off the community, they are supporting it, there is an official AIM client for linux, hell it was even posted on /. a few weeks ago.
/. crowd is that you don't just want people to play nice, you want them to play by your rules. "Open all servers to any kind of access we want" The truth is, the IM servers are theirs, if they wanted to shut out the linux community, then that is their perogative, but they have not, they have a client for you to use, you don't want to use their client, fine, you don't use their servers.
/dev/null
What really makes me mad at the
IM is popular because it is nearly ubiquitous, and AOL made it that way, if you want to have a competing Open Source messaging system, go for it, just don't expect to see everyone you know on it. If you want to talk to those people, you need AIM to connected to AOL's servers. Its really *QUITE* fair.
Stop Your whinning.
flames may be trashed before sending them my way, because they will end up there once they get here anyway, so save the bandwidth, type up your complaints calling me a moron or whatever and
file it in
I think....therefore I am
I reject your reality
Yes, it's their right. But it is also our right, as consumers and users of their technology, to complain. Is there something wrong with that? Do we have to accept silently everything we don't like from money-grubbing corporations because 'it's their right' to screw us over? Well, that seems to be their party line and you're buying it. We have a right to demand standards and openness, and yes, they have a right to refuse. That's capitalism... they give us what we want or we find it somewhere else.
72656B636148206C72655020726568746F6E41207473754A
Why did AIM/ICQ decide to use a centralized database? If you use that design and you have a few million members, of course you're going to have growing pains. Of course you're going to need an insane machine to handle the traffic.
But look at the Email or WWW. THese are decentralized systems and thus can handle the load very easily. They distribute out the overhead to thousands of hosts. Or look at battle.net versus the clones.
The reason that AIM/ICQ are centralized and require a big machine is because they designed that way. They were designed so that they had a common and fixed chokepoint that the corporations cound control and exploit.
Design it differently: Design a protocol where a user has a name of and all messages are sent to that host automatically for that user. THat way you can decentralize it and handle hundreds of millions of users and billions of messages. It worked for email, where people send megabyte powerpoint presentations, it'll work for ICQ where people wrote 4 line messages.
About time to embrace EveryBuddy?? It has had problems in the past, and I don't currently use it since everyone I know uses AIM, but it seems to be a great solution at least for Linux users...why not use the same app to connect to all of the IM systems, when a new one pops up, just add that to the list. Granted this doesn't solve the problem if AOL or any of the others decided to shut down their service completely or deny access from unknown clients......
Funny and I thought Perl == Paid employment recently located
At first AOL's action seemed more than a little hypocritical to me in light of this, but then I noticed that, because of the presence of the actual AIM icon on the GUI, there must have been some sort of licensing fee paid to AOL by Lotus.
So I guess AOL just wants those licensing fees. I'm not saying this is a smart move on their part - there's plenty of ways to make money off the service without restricting the open clients.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Haha, you're kidding, right? It's true that AOL members get spammed all the time with e-mail and ads, but I have almost never received spam in the years that I've been using AIM. ICQ, on the other hand, publishes your profile data on a web site, so that any halfway-intelligent person can write a script to check which User ID's are valid. There was a time when I would receive at least five or six "Check out this porn site!" messages a day on ICQ. Now I only receive that many per week.
ICQ is a piece of shit. Its official clients are buggy, feature-bloated, and even less standards-compliant than AOL's software. The only reason I use it is because I have some friends who still insist on using it. Everybuddy manages to trim most of the fat, fortunately.
For more information, click here.
Conclusions made here ... AOL is full of it, they want to make sure that they aren't next on the Monopoly lawsuit list and they'll blow all kinds of smoke and whistles to make it look like they're for the community.
AOL wants to get on my side ... they'll release the OSCAR protocol, not just TOC.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Who does AOL think they are? Well, they built and are supporting a successful IM network. It's theirs, and they let you use it for free. So I think they can dictate a *few* things. Like what software to use on it.
You don't like it, use Jabber. Set up a server, promote it, spend your money on it, and get my grandma to use it.
one of my roommates is a aol connectivity programmer here in reston. he told me the real issue is not access to their network. it's that all packets transmitted on the aol network have a copyright inside the packet. so in effect everytime an unauthorized client attaches to their network they are perpetrating copyright infringement because of the transmitted packets.
this apparently is the reason nobody has really tried to ip spoof the aol network. besides the fact that all aol packets for clients are b-class private and all internal packets are a-class private net addresses. the spoofer would not only be facing the hacking charges but aol would dump enormous copyright charges against them.
You see a problem, I see potential. - Vincent 'Vinnie' Antonelli
There are lots of *nix versions of ICQ. However, it sucks too. Let me count (a few of) the ways...
ICQ transmits your passwords plaintext.
Messages are easily spoofable.
There's no third-party extensability.
You can't run your own server (at least, not and communicate with the rest of the world).
There's no support for encrypted or signed messages.
And finally, it's controlled by a commercial entity. Don't want these things? Use jabber (www.jabber.org). Jabber is actually an XML-based protocol, so there are lots of differenct clients which conform. Since it's largely serverside, new clients (and clients for different platforms) are easy to write, and once a client has stabilized it very rarely needs upgrading (even to add features like ICQ compatability -- it's all done serverside).
Try Jabber. You'll like it. And if you don't, come back in 6 months and try it again.
Already been done. Check out Licq, Micq, GnomeICU, and a host of others, as well as (he said, modestly) the Jabber transport for ICQ.
Slightly off-topic comment to the "I don't think it would be hard..." remark: ICQ isn't a particularly easy protocol. It uses a combination of client-server UDP and peer-peer TCP that's tricky to get right. That also means that it's tough for one process to manage lots of ICQ connections, which is one of the reasons I'm rewriting icq-t...
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
AIM also includes advertising. Clients from other vendors do not have the advertising (I use Yahoo). If AOL allowed other vendors into their servers, they won't get the ad $$$ they are used to.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
There are two AIM servers. One is called Oscar and one is called TOC. AIM, and the AOL client software use TOC. The other one, Oscar, is "available" to the world. If AOL really really wanted to shut down 3rd part AIM clients, they'd have to shut down Oscar. This is not what they did.
They just started looking for a client string in the network protocol. This is similar to the HTTP request header, or the MP3 stream ACK, or whatever. Find a copy of QuckBuddy (AOL's Java client), or if you're developing a client, change the name of the connect string so Oscar thinks it's getting a valid client.
GAIM homepage
GAIM source tarball
All other types (RPM, DEB, etc)
- Bill
The current release is about stable enough for daily use, IMHO...
/joeyo
2^5
Here's to hoping AIM dies a horrible heat death and AOL users never realize there is a world beyond the AOL servers.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Last night, I was chatting on AIM with my girlfriend, when she stopped receiving messages. Well, ok, I'd been chatting earlier, and then she sent me a message, and I replied, but she never got it. I tried for an hour and 10 minutes, but she never got any messages. At that point she went to sleep.
This morning I was able to talk to her with Gaim, though.
Weird, eh? It looked to me like I was sending messages. No errors, but they just didn't get through.
I'm using v0.9.20.
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ICQ is completly owned by AOL.
*Insert sound of bubble bursting*
Sorry
Finkployd
If you want a IM provider that plays nice with linux, FreeBSD, MacOs and Windows, try Yahoo. I have been using their client for a few months on all of the above platforms and I'm very satisfied.
You have a choice, you don't need to feed the beast.
I believe that the buffer overflow allows you to execute arbitrary code on the client. They could give you code to run that does a checksum on the executable for example.
God forbid AOL be allowed to collect ad revenue from an instant-messaging service that runs on millions of dollars worth of equipment. Instant messaging is only "cheap" and "easy" to implement when you have a few thousand users.
This is one case where GPL'ed software isn't going to win out for at least a few years. Right now, a large IM system requires massive, massively-parallel directory and routing services, which require massive databases (read: not MySQL or Postgres 7) and massive servers with fast interconnect and low latency.
All of this costs money. If you open the protocol and the servers to all comers, where does that money come from? The GAIM team could build in support for AOL's ads, but the GPL would allow for patched or forked versions that strip out the ads. So it wouldn't do AOL any good to ask the GAIM team to support its ads.
For a bunch of Microsoft-skeptics, Slashdot readers are mighty easily swayed by Microsoft's PR spin on this. AOL isn't being anti-competitive by blocking 3rd-party clients. They're protecting a revenue stream that pays (they hope) for dozens of racks of expensive servers and millions of dollars in database licenses.Microsoft and Yahoo aren't fighting for freedom. They're fighting to convince naive courts that they have a "right" to strip out AOL's ads--on a service AOL is paying for in its entirety--and replace them with their own ads. If it goes to arbitration and MS and Yahoo are told they can make AIM clients as long as they give AOL's ads and ad-reporting mechanisms clear passage, you'll see MS and Yahoo lose interest in the whole idea mighty quickly indeed.
Massive peer-to-peer systems without central servers are a tough thing to do right now. Just ask the folks at Napster and the other filesharing projects. All of them are running clusters of independent servers. Sign on to Napster twice, and you'll see two sets of users and files.
When an equally massive, fully-distributed scheme for instant message routing and directory services becomes viable, those expensive central servers can go away, and so can the need for massive revenue. Seems to me something could be cobbled together out of a stripped-down version of OpenLDAP and ml.org-style dynamic DNS projects, so that any of your devices that are connected report their presence, and the lookups get farmed out over zillions of LDAP servers doing referrals.
By the time this happens, of course, text-based instant messaging may well be fading out in favor of IP telephony and videoconferencing, both of which all of the instant-messaging players are rolling into their clients as fast as they can.
Right here.
Ok, so it's not "official" per se - but it's the best client out there. Unlike gaim it only needs tk/tcl to run so it will work on Solaris/BSD/Linux/Windoze/...
I just connected to AOL IM via gaim just fine with version gaim-0.9.20-0. I don't see what the big deal is.
Jon
If your TOC-based AIM client can't send files to other AIM users, try sending them via industry-standard HTTP with an AIM addon called Apache Server. Now available for Windows 9x and NT.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
I don't get it... AOL and Time Warner are trying to hook up, and realistically, they should be playing nice. I mean, couldn't this be seen as "Anticompetive"? AOL pretty much owns the IM market with IC and AIM, if they keep shutting out the community, and keep denying scoffing at standards, won't that look bad?
Of course, it's not like this will keep your friendly neighborhood hacker from releasing a patch to fix things...
AOL is the *default* choice of internet provider for most people who buy computers these days. And they do a great job of making it so simple that most of their customers don't think there is any other way. Saying "AOL sucks. Get a real ISP." doesn't work. All I have to do is show an AOL user Outlook Express. While not the best e-mail client, it is far far better than AOL's e-mail. "You mean it automatically saves the messages on my computer? They don't get deleted after two weeks?" and so on.
Many many people have enough ability to use dial-up networking and configure Outlook or Eudora or whatever, and use ICQ. Once they see that life without AOL is actually better, they will switch. But it means you might have to take the time to educate someone a bit. Help them out. Once people with AOL feel "closed off" to their friends without it, there will be the demand from AOL's own customer base to implement access. They don't care about you on the outside. AOL doesn't win many customers from other ISP's, so you're not and never will be an AOL user. But they care about losing their existing customers. Once their users are ticked because their friends can't talk to them through IM, they will make AOL give in. AOL does listen to it's customers. They just don't listen to you. So make their customers do the work.
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The truth is out th- oh, wait, here is is...
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The truth is out th- oh, wait, here it is...
After scanning the messages in response to the report, it's all very, well "who cares" with few exceptions. No crying here, and no surprise either.
But you're right - as long as we keep trying to piggyback on corporate shoulders, we'll always get bucked sooner or later. Hit up Jabber for IM. Use Vorbis instead of MP3. Use Icecast instead of Shoutcast. While it wasn't true a little while ago, there are now quality alternatives to a lot of the stuff we get used to that don't carry the weight and consequances of corporate decision-making. I used AIM progs to communicate with a pal. Now he'll communicate with me using Jabber. Big deal. No loss, and big gain - as long as these companies keep doing what they're doing, the Open Souce alternatives are going to win and there will come a time when these corporate companies are going to be all alone with no one to harrass... So, hurray AOL. Thanks for giving me the motivation to use Free (as in Free Speach) alternatives to your pathetic services...
Mike
Greetings!
There's an alternative to avoid the banner ads: Use the Java version of AIM. That's what I use on all my boxes because it works great under *NIX, Windoze, and Mac.
Check the link out at: http://toc.oscar.aol.com/. You can use this client with your existing AIM account, or you can create a new one and skip the software download step.
Cheers!
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
AOL doesn't seem like the "bad guy" in this case to me. AIM allows people to send instant messages over AOL, which was previously a proprietary service provided to AOL members. It's their servers and internal software which you're relying upon for AIM to work. They can keep this supported by having their banner adds and "AOL 5.0 free!" adds (Like we don't get enough coasters and free disks with this on it already...).
I'm not trying to seem like an asshole here, but I doubt slashdot would appreciate it if someone came up with a way to mirror and allow posting of all their content without the banner adds to pay for the servers and bandwidth. (Yes, I'm aware one can simply use lynx, or turn off graphics, but the idea is still the same).
I personally love the AIM software. It allows you to communicate with AOL users cleanly and easily, and was what I needed to convince a family member to get off AOL and onto a generic local ISP.
AOL has provided this service to the public, which you would otherwise be paying $10/month for, for free. In return they request that you put up with some small banner adds. Doesn't seem like that big of a trade-off. And while I realize that the Linux version is still greatly lacking, it's understandable that they'd like to have money to support their expenses for the service that they're providing.
This kind of goes back to the discussion awhile ago on the EverQuest emulator. Verant spent the time, money, and effort, to develop their client and all the artwork, models, textures, and maps, with the intent that they would be used for their 10$/month game.
While I agree this issue is somewhat debatable, I don't think AOL deserves the bashing that it's going to recieve for this. THEY are the ones who are paying for this, not you.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
i'm using their official software under windows with no ads... just comment out all lines in "aim.odl" that say "load_ocm advert required"
From AOL's Open IM announcement site:
America Online is committed to extending the benefits of instant messaging technology to as many consumers as possible.
This wouldn't annoy me so much if they didn't keep flip-flopping on their strategy. I suppose that since AIM won't make them any money, they're focusing on brand dilution issues instead.
--Pete
An open standard is exactly what Jabber is.
There's no one official Jabber client. You write your own client, it conforms to the standard, it's a Jabber client. Microsoft makes an IM client that conforms to the protocol spec? It's a Jabber client, and every bit as legitimate as everyone else's.
However, Microsoft can also go ahead and finish their current IM-standardization efforts -- when the RFC that they (and AOL, and whoever else) are working on is released, Jabber will add support for that too -- server side, though, so it will work with existing Jabber clients as soon as the server is updated. Nifty, no?
Oh, you can get around it. May require a little ingenuity, though.
Let's say you run your own Jabber server outside the company firewall, and use ssh's tunneling support (one nice easy way).
If your company doesn't permit outgoing ssh connections, their sysadmin-types need a talking-to.
It's not that simple. At least one version of AOL Instant Messenger used a deliberate buffer overflow that the AOL servers checked for. No buffer overflow - non-AOL client.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
I'm using a freshly updated GAIM 0.10.0 right now, no problems...
It's their infrastructure, they can decide who gets to use the service and who doesn't. That's the end of it! Linux users shouldn't expect to be able to use AOL Instant Messenger (or its infrastructure) until after AOL for Linux has been released. (AOLinux?)
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
struct client_info_s info = {"AOL Instant Messenger (SM), version 4.1.2010/WIN32", 4, 30, 3141, "us",
"en", 0x0004, 0x0001, 0x055};
::looks at GAIM::
::looks at Slashdot article::
::looks at GAIM::
::signs off::
::signs on::
::looks at Slashdot article::
::looks at GAIM::
::receives message through AIM::
Err... is anyone here actually having problems? Anyone? Please speak up if so. (I am not having any trouble at all.)
For the record, I am connecting through TOC.
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With the proliferation of many different messenger systems, all those AIMers are going to be cut off from their friends who use MSN/Yahoo/ICQ. The motivation to use AIM diminishes as other messengers take off. So instead of AOL joining the community at large, they are creating a substantial, yet isolated community. It is a stupid mistake in the issue of a greater diverse internet. A smart move in the issue of keeping a captive audience. But in the end, they are just shooting themselves in the foot because if you are using AOL, you really don't need AIM to communicate to other AOLers but you will need another messenger to chat with your friends on MSN.
AOL just has a large enough ego to think these companies are clamoring to gain access to their herd of people. That may be partially true, but I believe it is more about these other applications trying to give their users as much versatility as possible, something AOL should think about.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.