His team tried to find ways to monetize the service, but advertising never really took off. “At the time, AOL’s revenue and business model depended on people subscribing.”Įven after AIM exploded, after everyone from Wall Street traders to 10th graders were using it, Appelman said AOL didn’t make AIM a priority. “There are very few people willing to say, ‘Oh, we should embrace this and toss all that old stuff that’s making us money,’” he said.
#AIM CHAT BOX FREE#
Appelman said back then, offering a free messaging service, rather than a paid subscription, was considered less than a solid business idea. “We built this in secret, in development, telling no one,” he said.Īnd when AIM was introduced in 1997, it was with little fanfare and the company didn’t embrace the service. So, along with a small team, he started designing an instant messaging service. “I sort of put my thoughts on paper and said, ‘We need to do this as a stand-alone product for the internet,’” Appelman said. Appelman wanted to make it easier for AOL subscribers.
But chatting on AOL back then was clunky and took a lot of effort.
/aol-desktop-5806dcc03df78cbc288fd879.jpg "aim chat box")
He was the guy behind the buddy list - you know, that thing that told people which of their friends were online. He helped invent it.īack in the ’90s, Appelman worked at AOL as a manger in development. You could say Appelman was one of AIM’s earliest adopters. He’s been logging into AIM to chat with his friends nearly every day for the past 20 years. In fact, most people probably think it died long ago. There aren’t many 20- and 30-something-year-olds who are still loyal to the service. Twenty years after its inception, AOL Instant Messenger will officially sign off on today.
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