AOL Instant Messenger Shuts Down after 20 Years

Megalith

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AOL has shuttered AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), its iconic chat service that debuted in 1997 and was popular in the ’00s. The way we communicate with each other has profoundly changed, but it is sad to see another piece of Internet history go.

If you were a 90’s kid, chances are there was a point in time when AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) was a huge part of your life. You likely remember the CD, your first screenname, your carefully curated away messages, and how you organized your buddy lists.
 
And it is the one chat service I never used. I cut my teeth on ICQ circa 1997, then went to Yahoo and MSN messenger, then Skype.
 
Used a bunch of them:

ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, GTalk...combined them all in Trillian. Now I'm down to just Hangouts. Did Skype for a little...
 
Never used AIM, but I do still have disks for the AOL 56k 90 day trial circa 1999 (I think). Nowadays I find that I mostly use Skype/Discord to communicate with people.
 
my old high school buddy tried to get both of us to log in for old times sake but my pw could not be recovered because it says my username was wrong or doesn't exist, i forgot the error msg. His username and pw recovered just fine so I figure mine got deleted somehow
 
Now what am I gonna do with all my AOL CD's I got in the mail? Noooooooooo :p
 
No way! Man I used this thing a ton back in the day. It was back before texting was invented and everybody had AOL. Kinda hard to think they're gonna shut it down but I guess it is pretty ancient.
 
Ah the good ole days of using this to hook up with chicks LOL
 
I used this like crazy, also used trillian with it. When that was around and cell phones made you txt with the numbers i always wondered why people didnt want to use AIM, i was like its quicker and more instant :)
 
Ah the good ole days of using this to hook up with chicks LOL
ICQ was wonderful for that back when it allowed you to search for people currently online in your zip code.
 
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