You have to admit, 20 years is a good run for a messaging protocol.
After 20 years, AIM, the AOL Instant Messenger protocol, will be shut down on December 15th, 2017. The announcement was made by Oath, the Frankenstein merger of AOL and Yahoo! created by now-parent company Verizon.
AIM, which surfaced from the original America Online community, served as one of the earliest cross-platform instant messaging tools with Apple embracing it in early versions of OS X.
But AIM was eventually overshadowed by the rise of social networking. Everything from Twitter to Facebook to Snapchat and scores of other networks lured people away from AIM and the other early instant messaging services. The rise of SMS as an ubiquitous means of communication also took its toll.
“After December 15, you will no longer have access to AIM and your data will be deleted,” the company said in an email notification. “If you use an @aim.com email address, your email account will not be affected and you will still be able to send and receive email as usual.”
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via The Mac Observer and help.aol.com