Third-party applications allowed it to be used in 2002 for the Sidekick. Official mobile versions of AIM appeared as early as 2001 on Palm OS through the AOL application. This does not include other instant messaging software related to or developed by AOL, such as ICQ and iChat. At one time, the software had the largest share of the instant messaging market in North America, especially in the United States (with 52% of the total reported as of 2006 ). AIM was an outgrowth of 'online messages' in the original platform written in PL/1 on a Stratus computer by Dave Brown. In May 1997, AIM was released unceremoniously as a stand-alone download for Microsoft Windows.

The company discontinued AIM as a service on December 15, 2017. In June 2017, Verizon combined AOL and Yahoo into its subsidiary Oath Inc. In June 2015, AOL was acquired by Verizon Communications. Its fall has often been compared with other once-popular Internet services, such as Myspace.

AIM's popularity declined as AOL subscribers started decreasing and steeply towards the 2010s, as Gmail's Google Talk, SMS, and Internet social networks, like Facebook gained popularity. Teens and college students were known to use the messenger's away message feature to keep in touch with friends, often frequently changing their away message throughout a day or leaving a message up with one's computer left on to inform buddies of their ongoings, location, parties, thoughts, or jokes.

Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile, macOS, Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS, Android TVĪIM ( AOL Instant Messenger) was an instant messaging and presence computer program created by AOL, which used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time.ĪIM was popular by the late 1990s, in United States and other countries, and was the leading instant messaging application in that region into the following decade.

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