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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.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
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
-- (Score:i , Imaginary)
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.
____
~ |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.
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.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
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."
Free Sony PSPs from Gratis
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...
i had this problem
since upgrading to trillian 3 the problem has vanished
have you tried trillian _3_?
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.
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
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?" `":" #");}
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.