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AOL Opening Up AIM Community to Third Parties
DaffyD writes "Refocusing its vision for AOL Instant Messenger, America Online is endeavoring to revitalize the service by opening up its community and presence to third parties. In addition to partners such as CareerBuilder, AOL is seeking to enlist independent developers to build extended AIM services and hopes to offer a plug-in architecture by the end of the year. ICQ recently added such functionality through its open XML-based Xtras feature. Maybe AOL is feeling the heat from alternatives such as Gaim and Adium."
Next up is presence integration with CareerBuilder's online recruiting Web site. Job seekers can now register their AIM Screen Name with their resume to provide prospective employers with a real-time connection. A user's online status will be indicated by the Running Man icon.
Whatever you do, just make sure you change your screen name once you got the job, your new boss may be checking out your running man while you're supposed to be working.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Opening these formats for development will cause more innovation, which can't be bad for the bottom line.
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And not let spyware type stuff get added to it. Lets hope their "addon" framework is a bit better than IE's "addon" framework.
Yup, nothing like good old competition to make a company become more innovative.
...
Oh, wait
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I hope this is a sign of great things to come. I know that the GAIM, Bitlbee, and other crowds will hear this as music to our ears.
Pretty Pictures!
I don't really think it'll save them....they need to bring something new to the table, and all they're doing here is bringing more of what everyone else has already brought.
Too little too late, IMHO.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
This is one of the larger episodes of back-pedaling that I've seen in a while.
Example 1
Example 2
AOL has been fighting for years to keep other IM cilent makers off their network. Amazing what a shrinking user base will do for a company.
I'm a big tall mofo.
It's not Open Source and it is Windows only, but the freeware version supports lots of things (like AIM file transfers) that kept my friends with AIM instead of gaim long after I had switched.
Why haven't they come up with a real and competitive standard yet? There are a number of different instant messaging networks out there, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc. and while I understand they want to keep their networks closed so they can force people to use their player, why not establish one standard and let people choose which client to use.
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Dont forget they IM type services require servers to function..
AOL is brining that to the table.. Without those servers, clients will be all dressed up with nowhere to go..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"America Online is endeavoring to revitalize the service by opening up its community and presence to third parties."
You want to revitalize the service? Don't install a bunch of extra crap (like "get AOL Broadband NOW!" icons) on my computer when I grab your messenger. Ad-generated revenue is acceptable in a "free" service, but keep it in the buddy list window, please, instead of popping up a bunch of other windows. Don't make me go buy DeadAIM or whatever just to use your messenger without the kind of problems that make me think of spyware and adware.
That would go a long way to "revitalizing."
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How about releasing a version of the AIM client that is actually more enjoyable to use than the previous one, instead of more annoying?!
Weirdly enough, when people install an instant messenger client on their computers, their first thought doesn't tend to be "Oh boy, I hope this thing gives me a stock ticker and a dozen popup advertisement windows!"
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
If I were them, I'd find about USING gaim...its existing plug-in system has been tried and true, and can be used in many different OSs already. It can even plug into alternate IM systems while keeping the "AIM" name (G-AIM!) It could be like google: "Get on GAIM and talk to so-and-so...he's on MSN Messenger I think" The ads would still go to GAIM/AOL. Just a thought.
But hey...what do I know?
We used to use our cellphones for this, but the annoying rings and need to mute the main conference phone to talk with colleagues to establish strategies or get our stories consistent was a hassle.
Whoever has the easiest to use and most features in messenger clients is going to have an opportunity to make some money out of it in the neear future, especially as such clients get integrated into other devices (PDAs, cellphones, MP3 players? Network appliances? Toaster?
The interesting parts include the gist:
everything in moderation
I'd be more concerned about someone else hopping on your computer when ProspectiveEmployer91241 sends a message to you...
While offline messaging is already available through third-party systems such as DoorManBot and some clients, such as TerraIM already have it integrated, it would be nice if AOL would actually make it native to their default client.
I hope their statements of supporting additions to the service will truly be open and not restricted to those the company already does business with. By making it open, the afford the opportunity of the broad support enjoyed by open source projects, where users feel they have some power.
Send offline messages on AIM with DoorManBot
How about AOL just opens up their "community" to outside clients, instead changing their protocol every few weeks just to lockout non-AOL Internetters from AIM? They want their Internet access to be a one-way street, but they want fresh new blood to reinvigorate their stagnant, isolated community. So, thinking like a corporation, they sign up new partners to bring inside AOL, rather than ride the innovation power of all the people who could connect if they opened their protocols and formats. It's supply-side community economics, and it won't work as well as defining the community by its members.
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make install -not war
Refocusing its vision for AOL Instant Messenger, America Online is endeavoring to revitalize the service by opening up its community and presence to third parties.
Refocusing its vision? Endeavoring to revitalize??
I could feel my hair starting to get pointy just reading that much.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Here is a great model I think AOL should pick up. Charge me 30 dollars for AIM. Make it feature rich, spy/adware free and charge me for the software. Not the service, the program. I know that doesn't sit well with the blind hippies among us but I have no problem paying for software if it's good. I'm in college, I dare say I couldn't function without AIM, hell this campus would damn near shut down without it. Charge me for the software and give me incentives to upgrade, it's daring, it's nutty, but I think it just might work.
Are you secure enough in your masculinity to run 'man touch'?
What would have been great is if AOL released the specs for OSCAR, AND provided hooks to the protocol to allow various feature extensions. This will never happen, as once OSCAR is opened, there will be a barrage of third party AIM clients that do not show ads.
Even now, is very easy to develope an application to track the online status of AIM/iChat users, using, for example Net::AIM, NET::TOC and other modules.
Big deal.
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
I only use AIM when those I want to chat with can't or won't use ICQ, which unfortunately is most of them. Thankfully, I don't have to use AIM to do it anymore. I use Trillian and it works just fine w/ AIM. And I can use my ICQ and Yahoo Messenger accounts.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Managers will now receive hundreds of "LMAO HER3S MAH RESUM3 FOR CONSIEDRATION LOL!!!!! WTF" messages.
You can do this now with 3rd party systyems like iChat and Macromedia Flash's lattest derivative Breeze.
Think MS Passport, only useful.
.\.\att Clare
Imagining for a second that AIM does decide to implement XMPP such that Server-to-Server connections work properly from the hundreds of existing Jabber servers directly to AIM.
That would bump the number of users on XMPP from an estimated 10 million (old figure from a year ago) to an estimated 45 million (AIM's fiugre from the same time period.) If their other services AOLIM and ICQ switched over at the same time, the total would be more like 80 million.
These sort of numbers would be about enough interoperability to say that the battle has been won, IMO. Although I'm curious to know what sort of numbers MSN command at the moment.
But as a server admin, my main interest is in not needing to run a transport just to give access to foreign services. If the foreign services all used the same, standard protocol, life would be pretty damn sweet. :-)
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
How generous and open AOL of to allow applications to hook into their SUCKY client! What a bunch of humanitarians. Praised be AOL.
I see posts here that say this will be good for projects like gaim... No, I don't see it that way at all. AOL is trying to lure people away from open implimentations like gaim, and towards AOL-sanctioned code, which they control.
You want to know how nice AOL is to third-party clients? Well, I wrote my own client. Recently, AOL took away my screen name, for "violation of the Terms of Service."
I can't imagine how I am in violation. I don't use AIM to do anything wrong. I use it to talk to my girlfriend, and a few of my friends here at University, maybe some family members. Oh, and I happen to have written a third party client. Apparently, there was something in that that AOL didn't like.
I have tried to contact AOL about this, ask them exactly WHAT it was that I did wrong. This was probably around a month ago. I haven't been able to get anything out of them.
Nothing in the article says they're opening up to alternative AIM clients. They are allowing companies to "partner" with them, probably involving large licensing fees, to add AIM "presence" (on/offline information) into their products and produce approved plugins for the advertising-riddled official client. That doesn't help GAIM or Adium or Jabber or any other open-source project. It probably doesn't help Trillian either.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
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There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Maybe AOL is feeling the heat from alternatives such as Gaim and Adium.
You must be kidding! I mean Gaim is great and all, but AOL and AIM have at least 4 orders of magnitude more users than Gaim and Adium combined. I doubt they're feeling a great deal of heat.
AIM is only a non-propreitary system when they have released a fully documented server to server protocol which any foreign server can use to allow its users to communicate with AOL users, and does not require any special prior arrangement for the connection to be made or interface to be used, and does not restrict the protocol from being implemented and used without restriction in open source software.
The key to an IM system being open I believe is a completely documented fully functional server to server interface which allows any foreign IM system with its own user namespace, run by anyone to interface with it and to communicate with its users. It works like this, lets you have seperate systems at servicea.com, and serviceb.com, each service has its own user namespace, meaning each manages its own database of usernames and username registration, so each server can have a user named, for instance, joeuser. joeuser@servicea.com would send an IM to joeuser@serviceb.com, and servicea.com would open a server to server connection to serviceb.com and the message would be sent between the services. Unlike IRC, the connection is made without prior arrangement, any server can connect to any other server when the user tries to send a message between the two.
Recently I noticed that AIM has an IM Robots section where there are a few bots you can interact with. AOL's new API should include a way to develop new chat bots.
They should develop a gateway that would allow an ordinary web server to send IMs, that way a web server could run chat bot scripts in a common language, such as PHP. This could be the catalyst for a diverse population of chat bots, which could be entertaining and/or useful.
SproutWorks Software Design
Nothing happened.
Now I'm sad. Why did you make me sad?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I have created a 'subscription' to those other users by adding them to my contact list. So whenever I logon, my jabber server contacts the other servers for that user's online status. Since the other user has also agreed to presence information, I'm notified whenever they change status, and my server notifies them. For messages, I contact my server, my server contacts the other user's server, and that goes to the other client.
Check it out. Wikipedia has a good article.
"Joy is contagious," he said, peering into the microscope.
AIM has been plagued with accidental account deletions over the past several months. The official line is that while cleaning up old, unused accounts, they have deleted some good ones. But this issue has been ongoing for several months now.
Personally, i had AIM reset my password daily for two weeks, then suddenly cancel my account..for no reason whatsoever. More infuriating, is that there is no support contact information on aim.com, at all.
Do some googling and you'll find this is a widespread problem. There was even a /. story at one point.
If AOL doesn't get their act together, they are going to really lose some ground in an area they have traditonally dominated.
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