Out of all the discussion in the news on this subject, I have yet to see or hear (or read) someone explain why this is a good idea, or even more, why AOL should do it, why it’s the right thing, etc…
I hear ‘consumers would benefit’ an awful lot, I’m not sure how. I don’t consider kewldude69 'whaazzzzuuuup’ing me every 5 minutes to be a benefit. People who want to talk to an AOL user over IM can easily download the client, without signing up for AOL. So what’s the deal?
The stand alone AOL IM has been out for atleast 5 years. AOL likes it because they put ad’s on the top. AOL customers like it because now they can talk to people who can’t get AOL. And there are alot of people who can’t get AOL. Where my parents live it is a long distance call to the nearest AOL server. We have a local ISP which is cheaper. Before the IM my parents were a lost to AOL now my parents see ads on the IM everyday. Now AOL is making money by getting the ads on my rents computer. It works out great for everybody.
My freind also uses it to talk to his parents who do have AOL. He is at school where we have a LAN. He could sign onto AOL but since he is on a joint account with his family they can’t sign on. So he uses the IM to talk to them, because members on a joint account cna be on the IM togeather.
One other thing, If you are being bothered by a guy block him. He can’t tell if you are online and can’t IM you. There is a little button somewhere on the IM window that ay block, click it and he can’t bother you anymore.
What I think is really funny is that the stand alone IM is better the the AOL service IM.
I am not an AOL user - have not been since the magic day when the internet became bigger than just AOL.
I use IM to stay in touch with people. Simple. I’ll bet that most of my buddies are not AOL users either… they just downloaded the client.
And, just today, I downloaded Obido (www.obido.com), which is a cross-platform IM client. It lets me use one program to chat with people using ICQ, Yahoo!, AOL-IM, etc. It’s AWESOME!!!
:sdimbert holds two thumbs up:
Yes, as etgaw1 stated, it’s mostly about the ad banner. AIM gets a lot of eyeballs. Also, AIM has a lot of subtle links into aol.com websites, which also leads to eyeballs looking at ads, and AOL hopes that a few folks might bookmark those pages.
A lot of it comes down to a simple, sound business idea-- diversification. AOL doesn’t want to limit itself to the realm of the AOL service. They want to hit every market they can. That was a big reason behind the purchase of ICQ-- they saw that ICQ hit a demographic very different from the average AOL service customer.
Slight correction:
AIM has only been around since late 1997 or early 1998 (don’t remember exactly), so it’s only been around for about 3 years at the most. 5 years ago AOL hardly had a website, and AOL 2.5 was the new version-- the first to actually include a web browser.
I first started using AIM a few years back . . . so the '97 figure sounds about right. As to the OP . . . huh? By “open IM” do you mean that anyone can IM you as they choose and you’ve no right to block them? If so, . . . that sounds like harassment to me. A bit nitpicky, maybe, but whatever works:)
I think the OP is referring to the move towards an “open source” IM Protocol, which would allow ICQ, AIM, PowWow, Yahoo!, and MSN (among others) users to communicate together, using whichever client they choose.
I agree with the OP. There is NO reason to open IM that I can see, other than the “little guys’” failure to compete with the AIM/ICQ AOL dominated world of IM. I say, tough toenails. But then, I’m an MS apologist, as well, so maybe my opinion is biased.
sdimbert, I get a semi-blank page when I check out that URL. It says “They’re moving” but doesn’t forward to where they’ve moved. Just FYI.
LL
One is open, one is not.
The open one (TOC - Talk to OSCAR) has fewer options, and is used by some very nice AIM clients (Tik amd Gaim).
OSCAR is the closed one, that’s the one I believe AOL is being forced to open.
I’m not certain why the open one isn’t sufficient to prevent a monopoly, but I’m not complaining since it means that finally I’'l be able to have stuff like directory lookup and password changing for Linux AIM.
'sides, current names are cute. Tik, TOC, Tcl…
flymaster is correct. I’m wondering why the push towards a standard IM protocol, when there’s nothing really stopping someone from chatting with an AIM user if they really want to, and I can’t really see what the virtues of a standard IM protocol are.
That’s because I gave you the wrong address. :blushing:
Try http://www.odigo.com.
I don’t have any idea what Obido is.
I have ICQ, AIM and Yahoo IM because friends use them and that’s really one of the only ways I can stay in touch with them. I tried to use Odigo, and it screwed up my system royally; I ended up having to reinstall Windows (and don’t I wish I was a guru so I could just switch to Linux and be done with this crap).
A couple of friends have had nothing but raves about Odigo, but I thought I’d put in that one word of caution that it may not work correctly for everyone. (And yes, I installed it correctly.)
Flymaster wrote:
I don’t think they’re talking about open source, but an open standard. With an open standard, the interface to something is published. With open source, all the insides are published.
Other messaging companies want to be able to enable their clients to talk to AIM clients, using an industry standard protocol of some sort. AOL, understandably, wants to keep people using their proprietary client, since they can then push ads and other content at them. If I could use, for example, ICQ to talk to AIM people, why would I download the AIM client?
As an aside, aren’t most instant messaging systems proprietary? Unless I’m mistaken, I can’t use Yahoo’s IM client to talk to people on ICQ. What makes AOL so special that they’re being targeted?
Hamadryad:
When did you try Odigo? I just found out about it within the last 5 days, and the version they offer is super-stable. Of course, it is not a commercial product, so bad stuff could happen, but I have had no problems. Maybe they’ve fixed whatever gave you problems.
Landsknecht: …aren’t most instant messaging systems proprietary? Unless I’m mistaken, I can’t use Yahoo’s IM client to talk to people on ICQ.
You’re correct on that count, but you can use Odigo (or Jabber and others) to talk to people on AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! and other systems.
I sound like I own stock in Odigo Inc, don’t I? 
Yes!
http://www.jabber.org !
As for why AOL is being targetted, I think the reasoning is they have a huge market share, aided by the fact that they leveraged it through their ISP services which are already edging towards monopoly investigation.
sdimbert: I tried it on Friday. 
Ain’t no thang, my system is a cobbled-together POS for the most part anyhow. I’ll probably give it another go soon now that I’ve reinstalled blah-doze and defragged and all of that good stuff.