Perhaps the only surprising thing about the announcement last week that AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is shutting down December 15, 2017 is that it did not happen years ago. After all, AIM had a market share of less than one percent? in 2011! But it was not always like that. For internet users of a certain age, AIM, like Nullsoft's Winamp, was likely once one of those must have programs.
In its heyday, the mid-2000s, AIM accounted for over half the instant messaging market; helping to popularise online conversations, as well as features, like custom icons and personalized profiles, now taken for granted. The service gradually fell out of favor as social media evolved, not an entirely unexpected development. But AIM's problems went much deeper. The service, like Winamp, was completely mismanaged by AOL, which was never entirely comfortable with a free product nor able to adapt (to the rise of mobile communications). The early pioneers of instant messaging, AIM, ICQ and MSN Messenger, engendered cross-platform programs, like Skype and WhatsApp, that are capable of handling all forms of communication, not just text conversations amongst desktop users.
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