Since 2007, you’ve been able to sign in to your AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) account to chat with your AIM contacts directly from Gmail. You simply login with your AIM account in Gmail and your contacts will populate your gChat list, allowing you to chat with them just like you would your Google Talk contatcs.
From this notice, it looks like changes may be afoot to this feature. From AIM’s notice, In the next few days, Google and AOL are working together to change the way you connect to AIM buddies within Gmail. After this change, Gmail and AIM users can talk directly to each other without having to log into both services (you will no longer be able to log into AIM within Gmail’s “Chat” section). → Read More
Earlier today, AOL’s Head of AIM Products Jason Shellen sent an email to the entire company urging people not to share its contents with people outside of the company. Even though we’re a part of AOL, we didn’t get that email. Well, that is until someone was kind enough to leak it to us. Hey, we are not outside of the company so that’s fair right? And since we didn’t technically get the email, I have no problem sharing it.
Anyway.
AOL is on the verge of launching a “shiny new video chat product dubbed ‘AV’”. And it actually looks pretty good. It’s video chat, but super-simple. You don’t need an account to use it. You don’t need anything (besides, sadly, Flash installed on your computer). You hit the homepage, start a chat, get a link, and send that to friends. Up to four people can chat at once. → Read More
Well, this is kind of awkward.
A couple weeks ago, we reported that AOL was in the process of acquiring of Thing Labs, makers of Brizzly. Neither AOL or Thing Labs would comment at the time, but we had multiple good sources on the deal. Fast forward to today: AOL is finally confirming the deal — right after they just acquired us.
So yes, like we said, AOL is acquiring Thing Labs. Only now, it’s technically our parent company that is buying them. So congrats to us, I guess?! → Read More
AOL has been seriously testing lifestreaming in various betas for AIM and AIM Connect for a few months now. At TechCrunch50, AOL just announced that lifestreaming will come out of beta on September 22 and will be part of the AIM product portfolio across Windows, Macs, the Web, iPhones and Windows Mobile.
Last week, the paid version of AIM for the iPhone was updated with lifestreaming capabilities. Today, lifestreaming is coming out of beta across AIM 7 for Windows, AIM for Mac, AIM for the Web, and AIM for Windows Mobile. → Read More
A few months ago AOL found a way to fuse AIM, its popular instant messenger client, with the broader messaging systems like Facebook and Twitter that have begun increasingly important on the web. AIM now includes a new tab dedicated to the lifestream — a combination of your friends’ activities on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, AIM itself, and a variety of other services (think of it as a FriendFeed with integrated chat). Tonight they’re bringing the lifestream to the iPhone with AIM 4.0, which is now live on the App Store for $2.99 (the free version doesn’t currently offer this functionality). → Read More
In July, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) embraced the stream in a new beta (for both Windows and Mac) and started moving beyond simple IMs. You can now see your Facebook and Twitter feeds, along with AIM buddy updates and feeds from other services.
The problem was that the Twitter and Facebook feeds were only one way. You could read them, but you couldn’t send updates from AIM to the other services. A few weeks ago that changed, and AIM status updates can now appear as updates in Facebook and Twitter as well. → Read More
AOL took another step towards fully embracing the lifestream today with the release of a slew of new AIM clients in beta and a new AIM Lifestream site, which brings together status updates from your AIM buddies with your activity streams from Facebook and Twitter. Earlier today, AOL quietly launched beta versions of AIM 7 for Windows, AIM for Mac 2.0, and a new AIM Windows Mobile client. (An upgrade to its iPhone app cannot be far behind).
All three of the AIM betas include a new “Lifestream” tab, which allows you to read all of the updates from your friends on Facebook and Twitter, along with public status updates from your AIM buddies. You can also share videos and links via your YouTube and Delicious accounts. Expect more services to be added. The AIM clients also include the familiar “Buddies” tab, which lets you launch private IM conversations with your AIM buddies, and a “Me” tab shows your profile stats, updates, and notifications. → Read More
There’s been a lot of talk the past few days since the launch of the iPhone 3.0 software about the lack of Push Notification apps in the App Store. Well, today brings a big one: AOL Instant Messenger (AIM).
Instant messaging apps are perhaps the perfect use for Push Notification, which allows you to use such services without requiring that they be open at all time. In our test of the pre-release beta version of the AIM app with Push, the messages were sent almost instantaneously. In testing it out right now, it looks to be just as fast. → Read More
Earlier today, Apple sent out an email (embedded below) to developers who are testing the latest iPhone 3.0 software, asking them to help do one final stress test the new Push Notification service. The app picked for this test was AOL’s AIM instant messaging application, which makes sense given that IM apps are likely to be the apps that end up using Push Notification the most.
Push Notification, for those who haven’t been following news about it for the past year, is the system Apple developed to alleviate the fact that it won’t allow third party apps to run in the background of the iPhone. Apple claims there are security concerns, battery life concerns and performance concerns that prevent background apps from being feasible at this time on the iPhone (though the company is considering ways to do background apps in the future). Instead, it has asked developers to use its servers to push out certain tasks (like IMs) that come to your phone even when that application isn’t running. → Read More
While there may still be a lot of confusion surrounding the future of AOL, that didn’t stop the folks in Northern Virginia from recently overhauling their popular AIM instant messaging app for iPhone (and iPod touch). Available in two tasty flavors, free (“AIM Free”) and paid (“AIM Paid”), AIM 2.0 for iPhone now provides SMS notifications, has location-aware services, and supports multiple accounts (among other updates). It appears as though all of the application updates have been included in both the free and paid versions, with the major (and obvious) difference being the inclusion of ads in the buddy list of the AIM Free app. → Read More
It was only a few days ago that we tore into the 20 dollar IM+ application for being overpriced, buggy, and lacking anything that justified that 20 dollar price tag. At the tail-end of that review, we expressed our hopes that an IM app done right would come along soon. Enter Meebo for Android, brought to you by the same people behind the awesome browser-based IM application of the same name. It’s got a clean interface, is dead simple to use, and best of all: it’s FREE. Game over, IM+. → Read More
If you’re a devoted IM’er and have owned a BlackBerry or a pre-App-Store iPhone, you probably know of BeeJive – or at least know it by its previous name, Jivetalk. Their BlackBerry IM solution is generally considered the best IM offering on the platform, and the BeeJive iPhone Web App nailed out a solid instant messaging solution long before full blown third party applications were an option. Over the weekend, BeeJiveIM made the jump out of the Web App realm, with its first iPhone App Store release. With a handful of free IM applications (IM+, Palringo) already out there, BeeJiveIMs $16 dollar price tag might incite a few nasty words from first-glance pessimists. Sure, it’s a bit blingy – but for anybody who IMs on the iPhone for more than a few minutes a day, it’s worth it. This thing is looking to be the best iPhone IM solution by leaps and bounds. Compared to the free solutions which seem to have a hell of a time just staying open, we’ve seen nothing but stability from BeeJiveIM. → Read More
People with landline phones take notice for VTech has announced something pretty cool. Their latest cordless phone, the IS6110, does IM between phones and comes with a QWERTY keyboard. When the base unit is plugged into your PC via USB you can chat over MSN, Windows Live and AIM. The IS6110 retails for $100 and is available at Best Buy. → Read More
Previously available by invite only, mundu is now available to the rest of us. It allows you to use your Yahoo!, Google, MSN, and AIM accounts with ease. Emphasis on “ease.” I was up and running and logged in on my iPod Touch in under a minute. Very, very simple stuff here. You’re able to be logged in to more than one service at a time and you can make your own status messages and remove contacts directly. It also handles smileys. Best of all, there’s nothing to install. Just point your iPhone’s browser (iPod Touch, too) to iphone.mundu.com and you’ll be good to go. Mundu IM for Apple iPhone [MobileWhack] → Read More
No more futzing with Safari IM solutions, kids. The iPhone has it’s own native messaging apps. First, there’s Apolloim, a super beta AIM client for the iPhone. It seems to work, but it’s completely untested. Next, you have ircm, an IRC client so you can tell n00bs to GTFO. Both have full source code available and it will be interesting to see how long before they escape from beta. iPhone double header: First native IM client AND first native IRC released [TUAW] → Read More
The lack of IM on the iPhone was a huge deterrent for me other than the network it runs on as well as a few other features that weren’t included on the $500+ phone. But Cerulean Studios is pulling some overtime to get Trillian Astra for those users who braved the waters to be the first to have Apple’s latest wonder. So what’s going on with the Beta? → Read More
At some point in the late morning, I woke up. I do that sometimes. I try to at least once a day. And, as I normally do when I wake, I opened my laptop to get to work. I’m a Mac user, so I use iChat for much of my online communications. The program auto-logs-me-on when the machine wakes up, and I noticed I had friends online I’d never seen before. Who was Spleak? Who was Prof Gilzot? I had to find out. So I decided to ask them. When I messaged Prof Gilzot, who sounds like an alien PH.D., he responded very quickly. Me: Uh, hey. Who’re you? Prof Gilzot: Hm? Type menu or help. How rude. At this point I knew he was a bot, but where did he come from? And what did he do? → Read More
Calling London or just about anywhere else internationally has always been pretty expensive. VoIP services, including Skype, have helped ease the pain of those massive ultra-long distance bills, but this just meant you were tethered to a computer. EQO Mobile could be the answer to affordable international long distance. This new service promises to reduce the costs of international calls by up to 95%, while also offering free voice calls, as well as “texting,” with other EQO users. Additionally users could look forward to free IM chat with MSN, Yahoo, AIM, GoogleTalk, ICQ and Jabber. The service, which EQO Mobile claims is powered by a small software application, and is available as a free download and installs itself automatically, let’s user keep their current phone and plan. EQO supports hundreds of mobile handsets, and the service is now available in 20 Europe countries, as well as the United States. EQO Mobile → Read More
While there are software apps that will already let you use multiple IM programs, the Dutch have now made it possible to chat from virtually any computer or mobile device. eBuddy provides Web and mobile instant messaging services, enabling you to chat with your MSN, Yahoo and AIM contacts without actually having to download or install any software. Read the rest at MobileCrunch… → Read More
