AOL Trying To Unify AIM And ICQ Services

Nerftoe writes: "CBS Marketwatch is reporting that AOL has been quietly integrating its AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ products. This would create a combined user base of about 146 million." That's a lotta people.

Comments

What would happen

[64.28.67.48]

If 146 million AIM/ICQ users typed on 146 million Packard Bells for 146 million years, would eventually one of them produce the entire works of Jon Katz?

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Hey, ICQ can be fun

[Amon CMB]

http://www.somethingawful.com/spam/
- Amon CMB

Headline misleading

[Tiroth]

I think the headline is overly hopeful. According to AOL's spokesperson, they have no intent to join the two services in the near future.

"Primrose said the capability was a by-product of tests conducted by engineers at AOL who were working on how to interoperate with other services, but that it was not an effort to interoperate AIM and ICQ."

They're also "quietly" planning to charge for AIM

[ShaunC]

At least, so say the icons built into the latest Macintosh AIM client. There's a service icon for "AIM Pay" and "AIM Pay (Unused)."

Shaun

The Lost Art of Conversation

[Dwindlehop]

Does no one understand the point of being able to have a conversation with these things?

My girlfriend lives in another state. To prevent expensive phone bills, we use ICQ (though we could just as easily use AIM). It's that simple. It's a fabulous way to stay in touch.

It's a sad day when I log on and see Flamebait modded up to +3.

Jonathan David Pearce

Everybuddy

[pb]

...but until that happens, and they release a Linux version without ads, there's always Everybuddy.

In any case, I'll always be in favor of a universal, free client; I haven't tried Jabber lately.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

This might not be such a bad thing...

[BMIComp]

I, personally, like AOL's AIM client, and I don't really care much for ICQ. However, a minority of my friends like to use ICQ, and refuse to use AIM at all. So, in order to talk to all my friends, I have to run both AIM and ICQ. I feel that integrating AOL and ICQ will make it easier for most IM users to communicate.

For Gods Sake Man!

[child_of_mercy]

As it is, the phone loves to ring at the most pessimal moments, like right after I get home from work and sit on the crapper.

You go to the crapper just AFTER you get home from work?

You mean you haven't discovered that few pleasures in the world to equal that of a long crap on company time?

Re:Everybuddy

[Erbo]

You should; the assortment of Jabber clients is growing by leaps and bounds. There are now at least two Linux clients (Gabber, for GNOME people, and Jarl, written in Perl/Tk...plus I've heard about Pybber, a Python client, that's up-and-coming), two Windows clients (JabberIM and WinJab) with more being worked on, Java applet clients under development, a Macintosh client (Jabbernaut), and it goes on and on...

But Jabber can do more than just instant messaging. We're actually demoing a little application that consists of an MP3 jukebox program and a separate remote control program, both written in Perl and logging into a Jabber server as clients. The remotes send messages to the jukebox indicating which songs they want played, and the jukebox sends back, in its "presence" message, information about what song's currently playing. And all done via the standard Jabber protocol, extended in a standard fashion, because it's XML. (We wanted to do a Jabber-controlled robot, but we only had four days to rig up a demo :-). )

Check out Jabber.org, JabberCentral, and, of course, Jabber.com Inc.

Eric
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146 million *users*, not people.

[generic-man]

AIM and ICQ names/numbers are quite disposable -- if you want to get someone out of your hair, just create a new account and tell all your friends to message you on it instead. I personally have one ICQ number and as many as 4 AIM names (I've only ever used 2, but the other 2 never expired). I have known people who used upwards of 20 names in their lifetimes, plus more that I didn't know about.

Please, don't believe the hype surrounding the enormous user bases. Many people have an AIM and ICQ account specifically _because_ the two services aren't seamlessly integrated just yet.

Re:I don't use AIM or ICQ

[ChicagoFan]

Besides, when I'm busy programming or almost any other form of hacking like setting up my LAN, it really annoys me to be interrupted in the middle of whatever I'm doing. As it is, the phone loves to ring at the most pessimal moments, like right after I get home from work and sit on the crapper.

So ignore it. What people forget is that this stuff is there for *your* convenience, not the caller's. I ignore my phone all the time. My family knows to leave their message because I screen calls and will pick up if it's them. And even then sometimes I don't pick up. :-)

Anyone who later complains "I was IM-ing you!" and gets pissed that you couldn't chat at that exact particular moment isn't worth knowing anyway. In my opinion, at least.

ChicagoFan

Re:I don't use AIM or ICQ

[generic-man]

Yeah, really. I hate it when people start to talk to me. It feels all icky and social. I'd prefer just to crawl into my little corner of the world, surrounded by blinking lights and little boxes that behave exactly as I tell them to.