One of the oldest chat tools enjoyed by millions of users over the past two decades, AIM, or AOL Instant Messenger, has finally closed its doors for good. Joining the likes of Microsoft's MSN and Windows Messenger, AIM will no longer work if you try and boot it up, so if you had any friends on there you wanted to keep in touch with, we hope you found another way to communicate.
Originally launched in may 1997, AIM was one of the more popular chat tools over the years, helping to popularize many modern chat functions that we take for granted. It pioneered status lights to let people know what your current availability was like and encouraged the use of abbreviations like LoL and BRB.
As Hexus explains, during its peak, AIM enjoyed a user base of some 36 million people, a huge number for the early '00s. While platforms like Facebook may dominate today with more than two billion users, AIM was a front-runner in its day and maintained a dedicated user base in the years since.
However, what users did remain in 2017, weren't enough to keep the lights on, as in October Oath, the current owner of the AIM platform, announced that the lights would be turned off for good in mid-December and now that time has come and passed.
In poetic fashion, Mark Zuckerberg himself lamented the closure, stating in October that:
"AOL Instant Messenger was a defining part of my childhood. As part of the first generation to grow up with the internet, it helped me understand internet communication intuitively and emotionally in a way that people just a few years older may have only considered intellectually."
Farewell AIM. You were a champion in your day.
