AIM is Dead. Long Live Facebook.
When was the last time “America Online” was relevant?
I know I joined the AOL Instant Messenger community when all my friends were AOL subscribers. That was the only way to contact them over IM from outside of the AOL walled garden. Now it seems that with the lack of the AIM protocol being fully open, and lack of development, AIM is a dinosaur amongst Web 2.0 heavyweights.
I propose the following:
I would like to leave the AIM community. My “screenname” is not relevant to who I am. My control over grouping and people is somewhat limited. People change screennames as a whim. I declare that AIM is dead, and that a new successor come in.
- Gmail? Still have to add people to your list arbitrarily.
- Jabber? Fantastically open, but my mom doesn’t know what it is.
- Yahoo Messenger? Sure, if you want a million and one spam messages.
So, I offer that everyone move over to Facebook chat. It doesn’t have all the features that AIM has (file transfer, audio/video chat), but that can be built in the future. I appreciate Facebook chat for these reasons:
- Same IM picture as your profile picture. It just makes sense. I’m not talking to a cartoon kitty, I’m talking to a human.
- There are more people available on Facebook chat, and you can limit access quite easily.
- Your buddy list is synchronized with your Facebook list: No seperation.
- Facebook has become ubiquitous (lots of people 40+ are on the service, which has been surprising).
- For Facebook to claim more attention and digital real estate, get people entrenched in the IM platform.
- No anonymous IMs, and also, you can only talk to people you are friends with. This can limit stalkers and child IM problems if you are particular with the friends you add to your profile.
- Obviously more that I can’t think of right now.
I’m really considering leaving AIM for good, and purely going to Facebook chat. It seems that AIM has become a fringe property. The only thing I find it good for is voice and video (via iChat), but that can be duplicated in various other services on the web and the desktop.
Who is with me?! Let’s leave the antiquated AIM in the dust, and let our “free market choices” decide where to converse.
