Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

AOL Is Cutting Off Third-Party App Access To AIM (9to5mac.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the sign-of-the-times dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Mac: AOL announced today that it is starting to cut off third-party app access to its Instant Messenger service. As first noticed by ArsTechnica, AOL began notifying users of at least one third-party app, Adium, that it would become obsolete starting on March 28th. At this point, it's unclear whether or not all third-party applications will be rendered useless come March 28th, but the message presented to Adium users seemed to strongly imply that: "Hello. Effective 3/28, we will no longer support connections to the AIM network via this method. If you wish to use the free consumer AIM product, we invite you to visit http://www.aim.com/ for more information." What this likely means is that AOL is shutting down the OSCAR chat protocol that is used to handle AIM messages. The service will, however, continue to be available via AOL's own chat app that is supported on macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android.

5 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Is AIM still going? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Does anyone still use that, I seriously thought it went away like MSN and Yahoo Messenger.

  2. What year? by rmdingler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    AOL began notifying users of at least one third-party app, Adium, that it would become obsolete starting on March 28th.

    It might've been more efficient to personally notify the last 6 users.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  3. Re:People still use AIM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For me it's e-mail, standard text message, or nothing. I'm not interested in the chat application du jour, that's for young people who haven't experienced firsthand the joy of multiple application switches and losing years of chat history and contacts.

  4. Re:Ads. by mlts · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is going to kill AIM. Yes, it takes expense to support third party items, but being open gets more people using the service.

    There have been a shitload of closed chat systems, Anyone remember "Ding!" in the 1990s? There were many "Internet phone" companies also offering chat mechanisms as well. The reason why they are not around is because never were open enough to attract third party developers.

    Plus, who uses AIM these days? If I need to message someone, it will either be SMS/MMS, FB Messenger, Signal, iMessage, or even Skype. AIM isn't worth the time in keeping a client open for it.

  5. Re:People still use AIM? by TWX · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I suspect that text message has done it for a lot of people, simply because they don't have to have a computer involved anymore and they can send/receive nearly anywhere. Only downside is that you don't get to set a cutesy or naughty screen name.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.