The second life of the customer AIM: a new user interface and group chats

AOL Instant Messenger is very popular not used in Russia. And after AOL sold its ICQ Russian company DST, interest in the AIM client only became smaller. In the world of AIM's popularity also declined.

Yesterday, AOL has taken the first step in an attempt to regain its former glory. AIM has a new interface, group chats and stories synchronization between different devices.

Updated AIM looks like this:

Twitter client influence is obvious. The sidebar offers direct access to the chat, the latest news of your friends to important global and technology news (AOL - real media empire, which owns a lot of news resources).

Now the official AIM client only supports two protocols - himself AIM and Google Talk. It is Google Talk, rather than "jabber in general." You can not add a custom jabber-account, but only Google Talk.

AIM produces mixed feelings. The interface is created on the principle "I am blinded him from what was" - in the main window, there was a place and the elements of OS X, and iOS. There are a number of features that are popular - for example, show YouTube-video chat in the chat window. There are things badly implemented - in particular scrolling contacts.

AOL also released a version of AIM for iPhone. In the App Store you can download free and pay application (the differences boil down to a lack of advertising and the ability to use additional sound alert).

The new AIM is unlikely to be popular in Russia. He seeks to actively involve the user in the AOL services (disable sections with news, for example, can not be) and too little support protocols.

Tell us what IM-client you are using now.

[AIM for Mac]