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AOL Instant Messenger, launched in 1997 without permission, will officially end on December 15th. AIM was a free service that helped make the internet a gathering place and inspired pop culture cameos. Users can download their chat logs before they are taken down.
AOL Instant Messenger launched quietly in May 1997, the brainchild of developers Barry Appelman, Eric Bosco and Jerry Harris. In a 2014 story of the text messaging platform that appeared in Mashable, AIM was released without the permission of superiors and was offered free to subscribers, unlike other AOL paid services that always charged. Those days of casual chat officially end on December 15, 2017, although innovations from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook made that obsolete long ago.
20th Century Messaging Log Out:
AIM has helped make the Internet a gathering place. He’s also sparked pop culture cameos in Hollywood’s “You’ve Got Mail” and television’s “Sex and the City.”
“AIM taught me how to LOL and the subtle difference between ROFL and ROFLMAO. I was always brb-ing, and always jk’ing,” David Pierce wrote in Wired following the announcement.
If you still know your AIM password, you can download your old chat logs. Head to aol.com to find out how, before they are taken down on December 15th.
