AOL Instant Messenger to be discontinued in December

AIM messenger.
(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter/AIM)

After 20 years, AOL Instant Messenger will be discontinued effective Dec. 15, 2017, the company announced Friday. "If you were a '90s kid, chances are there was a point in time when [AIM] was a huge part of your life," wrote Michael Albers, the communications products vice president at Oath, which owns AOL. "You likely remember the CD, your first screen name, your carefully curated away messages, and how you organized your buddy lists. Right now you might be reminiscing about how you had to compete for time on the home computer in order to chat with friends outside of school."

With alternatives like texting, Google Hangouts, Slack, and Facebook Messenger, "it's hard to imagine that many people are still using AIM, so ... this upcoming shutdown [isn't] likely to make a huge difference," The Verge writes. Rather, AIM's termination marks an end of an era: "In the late 1990s, the world had never seen anything like it," Albers wrote. "And it captivated all of us." Jeva Lange

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.