Today is another sorry day , a Friday like so many others keep for one tear - twitch bit of news show : AOL declare its Instant Messengerwill dieon December 15th . It was 20 eld honest-to-goodness .
This is n’t the first time that AIM has passed away . Gizmodo first reported on its death in 2012 , when AOLsackedalmost all of the aging service ’s squad . Only funding staff were left , and they kept AIM alive in the same way that a hospice unit might watch over a patient with not much time leave . But a day after that news broke , AOLissued a hopeful program line : “ We are not vote down instant messenger . We ’ll continue to support it and evolve the intersection . ”
All good things come in to an end . On Dec 15 , we ’ll bid farewell to AIM . give thanks you to all our users!#AIMemorieshttps://t.co / b6cjR2tSuUpic.twitter.com / V09Fl7EPMx
— AIM ( @aim)October 6 , 2017
Well , not any more , my friends . AIM has a trivial more than two months left to live . After that , you ’re stuck with Google Hangouts , Facebook Messenger , Apple Messages , WhatsApp , Twitter , and approximately 3,498 other similar net - base communicating chopine . And if you ’re surprised by this news , you should n’t be . AIM ’s parent company Oath started kill off the service ’s featuresmonths ago .
AIM might be missed . Michael Albers , the vice president of product communications at Oath , made the announcementon a new Tumblr phone AIMemories . The pseudo - obituary begins :
If you were a 90 ’s small fry , chances are there was a point in time when AOL Instant Messenger ( AIM ) was a Brobdingnagian part of your living . You likely remember the CD , your first screenname , your cautiously curated away messages , and how you organize your sidekick lists . Right now you might be reminiscing about how you had to compete for time on the home figurer so as to claver with friends outside of school . You might also remember how character throughout tonic civilization from “ You ’ve Got Mail ” to “ Sex and the City ” used AIM to aid pilot their family relationship . In the late 1990 ’s , the creation had never understand anything like it . And it beguile all of us .
Do you finger better now ? You should n’t because this is a sad solar day . The only day that could be sadder than this one is December 15th , when AIM kick the bucket for good .
We ’ve extend to out to Oath for more details on what AIM ’s dying means , both philosophically and practically . We ’ll update this post when we hear back .
[ AIM ]
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