"Major internet service provider AOL was dominating the market in the 1990s, not long after its founding in 1983. In that decade, AOL programmers worked on an app that had the ability to send instant digital messages to people. It was referred to as AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM, and it is not an understatement to say that internet culture would look very different today without it. Released in 1997, AIM was a resounding success."
"AIM popularized personal screen names, emojis, and other marks of individuality in instant messaging. Reddit users reminisced about AOL's app, sharing their old AIM names and posting memories such as "Keeping your AIM online so you can hear the door open sound, hoping it was your crush coming online," and "Good old days of setting your status to something cool, hoping your crush will see it.""
AOL launched AIM in 1997 and grew into a dominant instant-messaging service that reached about 36 million users by 2001. AIM introduced conventions such as personal screen names, emojis, status messages, and audible online notifications that shaped early internet social behavior. AOL also experimented with an early AI chatbot alongside AIM. The rise of smartphones and mobile-first messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, plus social networks integrating messaging with media and profiles, eroded AIM's desktop-centric user base. AOL failed to pivot quickly to mobile, and AIM officially shut down on December 15, 2017. Modern messaging features and culture trace roots back to AIM's innovations.
Read at BGR
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]