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."

Comments

<AOL>Me, too!</AOL>

[fembots]

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.

Why No Standard?

[moofdaddy]

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.

Re:Why No Standard?

[Jerf]

There is an IETF standard, XMPP. And as it is rather extensible, I'm sure it can do whatever AOL thinks they want to make their protocol do.

The problem is, other than Jabber, nobody (AFAIK) has implemented it. Ever so slowly, but ever so surely, it is sinking in that there is no longer any point to having your own "gated community" when everybody just has an account on all of the services and uses a multi-network IM client that still doesn't show your commercials.

If AOL chooses to release something other than XMPP that tries to solve the same problems, only in AOL's way, developers should shun the new protocol and insist that AOL implement the standard instead of creating their own. Things that can connect to XMPP exist today. Nothing today exists that can use Tomorrow's Yet Another Proprietary AOL Protocol.

Until this occurs, it still won't have fully sunk in. IM is commoditizing. Actually, it's already a commodity, and only by artificially locking up the market have the large networks made it even this far, and that is an unnatural, unstable accomplishment that will inevitably break down, not something to build a business on.

Re:Why No Standard?

[cuijian]

There is an IETF standard, XMPP. And as it is rather extensible, I'm sure it can do whatever AOL thinks they want to make their protocol do.

The problem is, other than Jabber, nobody (AFAIK) has implemented it.

The next version of iChat AV, Apple's IM/Video Conferencing Application will feature XMPP/Jabber Interoperability. They have been using it for iChat to iChat communications for a while and now have fully implemented the standard and are opening up to 3rd party implementations.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/ichat.html

The upcoming iChat AV server also supports 3rd party XMPP/Jabber clients:

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/tiger/

Here's a Clue

[Anonymous Coward]

"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

Re:Please god let them do it right

[RM6f9]

Oops, too late: a default install currently includes viewpoint, weatherbug, and ezula.

Re:Don't Forget Trillian

[myspys]

i had this problem

since upgrading to trillian 3 the problem has vanished

have you tried trillian _3_?

not open protocols

[Anonymouse Cownerd]

This does not mean that AOL is releasing specs on their OSCAR protocol, which would have been great. AIM, iChat, and ICQ run on OSCAR. OSCAR is proprietary and will continue to be proprietary. If AOL can extend OSCAR for Apple for the purpose of video chatting, they can easily extend OSCAR for other features. TOC is AOL's string based open source protocol - a subset of OSCAR. TOC is free but is limited in features.

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.

Re:Please god let them do it right

[juberti]

Man oh man, I hear you. I've been in charge of the design of the AIM plugin framework, and while I think we are going to have some real good stuff there, I'm also really trying to get us to dial back on the bundled crap - I think it really turns off developers to install something that drops lots of other stuff on your machine.

But we're going to have a nice platform, with web services, SIP gateways, client plug-ins, and a client SDK; there's different levels of intergration depending on what you're trying to do. I just hope that the clever developers out there look at this as an opportunity to build something that millions of people could be using, and aren't put off by prejudice against AIM/AOL.

Anyway - if you want us to "do it right", I'd appreciate it if you would let us know what you would like to see! Email me at juberti [aol.com], or post to my [new] blog on this topic. http://journals.aol.com/juberti/runningman