AIM, Instant Messaging, and Internet Immediacy
History of Social Media, Integrated, and Inbound Marketing Thought Paper
The early days of the internet played a large role in the way we communicate and interact with people both near and far. With the ever-evolving technologies introduced nearly constantly, it’s easy to forget just how seemingly revolutionary the early internet and instant messaging was — and still is — to our modern forms of daily interactions.
AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM, was launched in 1997 as a free-to-use instant messaging service within AOL’s program. Though AOL functioned as a paid subscription-based service, AIM was available to all without a fee. The difference in the business operations of the two services created a rift between the overarching AOL company and the smaller, newer (yet extremely successful) AIM service and its creators. Though AIM did not bring in revenue, it utilized innovative and forward-thinking elements of messaging that could not be found anywhere else (Abbruzzese, 2014). The service connected friends, strangers, and everyone in between instantaneously, and allowed users to add friends to their Buddy List via a known screenname. AIM utilized AOL’s location searching tool to locate specific people and connect them to friends or other currently active users to engage in conversation (Abbruzzese, 2014).
However, after 20 years of service, AIM was retired in December 2017. What was once one of the most used messaging services, accounting for 52% of North America’s instant messaging market (Desjardins, 2016), AIM struggled with shifting into a more mobile and modern internet world (Panko, 2017). Though social media and inner-network chat features may largely be to blame for the decline of AIM services and users, AOL Instant Messenger’s innovation lives on. Barry Appelman, one of AIM’s creators, refers to the early messaging service as an innovator’s dilemma. While AIM truly was innovative for its time, AOL’s “failure to recognize and adapt to change” can be accredited to the messaging service’s downfall (Abbruzzese, 2014).
AIM was one of the first to implement voice chat, file transfers and sharing, customized icons and profiles, and chat bots (Abbruzzese, 2014; Panko, 2017). Long before Skype, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, AIM changed the ways in which we communicate with one another (Panko, 2017). The immediacy that we are so familiar with in our modern social internet experiences was greatly influenced by the cultural shift that came with AIM and early 2000s internet (Panko, 2017).
This cultural shift towards a more online — or virtual — reality created a sense of urgency, immediacy, and instant gratification. As we saw with AIM, we no longer need to wait for someone to receive a letter, craft a lengthy response, and ship it back. The internet and instant messaging, for that matter, immediately tell us if someone is unavailable or simply not ready to engage in conversation. AIM’s away messages were a personal way to leave a note letting friends know where you were or why you couldn’t respond immediately (Abbruzzese, 2014).
A lasting impact of AIM and instant messaging is the “internet speak” with which we are familiar, even now (Panko, 2017; Pierce, 2017). Shortened words, abbreviations, and online lingo originated largely on AIM and similar messaging services and can once again be traced back to the more recent need to share information quickly and with urgency. Even now, nearly 25 years after AIM’s creation, we are still LOL-ing and sending out a brief “TTYL” or “BRB” message to our friends online.
References
Abbruzzese, J. (2014, April 15). The rise and fall of AIM, the breakthrough AOL never wanted. Mashable. https://mashable.com/2014/04/15/aim-history/#71WYuxmGuPqS.
Desjardins, J. (2016, November 17). The evolution of instant messaging. Visual Capitalist. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/evolution-instant-messaging/.
Panko, B. (2017, October 6). The sharp rise and steep descent of AOL Instant Messenger. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/pioneering-aol-instant-messenger-end-180965152/.
Pierce, D. (2017, October 7). So long, AIM. For years, for millions, you were the internet. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/rip-aim-aol-instant-messenger-shutdown/.
