22 replies to this topic

[Kite]

http://gizmodo.com/5...officially-dead

It looks like AIM is unofficially dead. It probably has been for a long time, but this is sort of the nail in the coffin. I doubt they are going to pull the plug on the actual network for a long while, but it has been getting rather sluggish and disconnects often (for a chat network). So this brings me to my main point for this topic.

I've been a long time user of AIM (the protocol anyway... the official client is terrible). I don't have very many people I talk to on there, but I still found it convenient for talking to people outside of IRC. Ignoring IRC, what communication network do you use for communicating with other people? Yahoo? Google Talk? Skype? Other?

I'm honestly curious because I'm considering getting into another network due to how unreliable AIM is becoming and this has made it somewhat clear that they have no plans of fixing it.

[The Satellite]

I have MSN Live Messenger and Skype running, but people seem to have mostly abandoned MSN. It was an okay messenger, and you could customize your font as well as smilies, but after a while, it just became uninteresting due to favoring Skype's group text chat support; mainly, if you lost your connection in the middle of a group chat on Skype, you simply reload all the messages once you reconnect, but on MSN, you drop out of the conversation. That, and messages will still get through on Skype once your net comes back online, but you won't get them at all on MSN. I rarely chat to anyone on MSN anymore; right now, I just use it as an "email alert" system, since it's linked to my email and lets me know when I have a new message. Otherwise, I use Skype for all my non-IRC chatting.

Plus, MSN seems way too easy to get hacked; I've had at least three different friends get their MSN hacked before.

[Rambly]

I've already mentioned this to you elsewhere, but I might as well repost it here for the sake of the people who didn't catch it that might want to know of alternatives.

I still use AIM the most out of any IM client, actually, so this news kind of sucks. Barring AIM, though, I mostly use Skype for all of my IMing purposes. It's kind of buggy (especially group chats--messages often randomly get marked as unread, and Skype likes to scroll to whatever the earliest unread message is, so it'll randomly scroll up even as new IMs are received ), but it works well enough, and most of the people I know that aren't on AIM use it, anyway.

Other than that, I keep MSN and Google Talk around, but I rarely get IMs on either. The latter is probably because most of the people I have added on GTalk are people that I talk to elsewhere already, but the number of people on my MSN list has dwindled further and further as time has gone on. I suspect the hacking problems TS mentioned might have something to do with it, not to mention that the protocol is generally riddled with spam...

Twitter's kind of neat as a way to keep up with what people are up to, but it's nowhere near a replacement for a good IM protocol. It just doesn't feel as live, so it's not nearly as convenient if you want to hold an extended conversation.

[Sheik]

I use Skype, facebook and ICQ. Used to use MSN too, for a bit.
And IRC of course.

[Jared]

Just Facebook and Skype for me.

[Hunter P Brown]

I use Google Talk and Skype. On my phone, I use Facebook Messenger.

[NoeL]

I use Miranda, which is a customisable multi-protocol client. I only have it set up to use MSN, AIM and Skype, but it supports Facebook, Yahoo, ICQ and all those.

[Neppy]

I don't... well, I used to use all three messengers... AIM, MSN, and Yahoo, but that was like 6 years ago. I haven't used any of them since about 4 years ago.. and don't really plan to either. Plus... the people I want to talk to the most, are on IRC anyways.

[Taco Chopper]

The need for instant messagers like MSN and AIM disappeared quickly when Facebook added chat features. The only messengers I use nowadays are Skype and Facebook (and very, very rarely IRC). I used Pidgin to maintain MSN and AIM for a bit but nobody was ever online who wasn't online on the aforementioned clients so it sort of defeated the purpose of having them running.

[Radien]

Hmmmm.... well, this is making me realize it's been awhile since I've really, truly used AIM frequently.

As for me -- when I have a working and functional computer -- I use Trillian, which is capable of logging on to a number of different IM services. But that's just semantics: it is still divided into logins for different accounts, including one for AIM. Actually, AIM is the service I have used most often. In contrast: ICQ is dead, Yahoo IM sucks, MSN apparently does its best to block out Trillian... and although Trillian can connect to Facebook chat, it isn't really any better than FB's in-browser IM client, so I don't use that feature very much.

That said, I've been using FB the most often out of all the services currently available. In my browser, specifically. It's surprising, but their in-browser IM client is actually pretty good. (What's also surprising is that FB has an excellent file transfer PM system, but that's a different subject.)

The main downside, if this even IS one, is that I can only chat with people I have on Facebook...and I only choose to add people on Facebook if I know them particularly well. I tend to be lenient with anyone from PureZC, but I end up having to learn all their real names if I have any hope of communicating with them (without confusing myself).

I'm willing to bet AIM will be absorbed into another IM network, but I wonder what the state of IMs is today. One major downside of IM programs -- for the parent companies, anyway -- is that they don't have many opportunities to make them money (in fact, I have no idea how AOL ever made a dime from AIM... Were there ads? I forget).

But yeah, if you ever want to talk to me in real time, ask me for my Facebook profile. Once I get my own computer again, I'll probably be back on IRC as well, but it's pretty remarkable that IRC still remains useful. It's just the most straightforward way to chat with groups of people via text.

[Skipper]

I use Skype. Primarily use Skype. Well, Skype and Steam, really - and IRC. ...And Facebook Messanger.

If I absolutely must, though, I'll sign on to MSN/Windows Live/Hotmail/whatever it's called nowadays via Pidgin. But that's every once in a blue moon; for now, I stick mainly with Skype, Steam, and Facebook.

[Daniel]

I have not used any IMs in a good five years. When I have time to get on my laptop I use IRC and I use Colloquy on my iPhone and iPad to log on IRC now and then. Besides IRC the only messaging I do is texting but just with people I know in real life.

I would not mind texting someone from here but I am not a gamer so I don't really have much in common with anyone.

[Ben]

Steam, iMessage, and occasionally mumble or Skype for voice chat. Other than that I stick to IRC.

[trucky5]

I've always just used Facebook, Skype, and Ventrilo. Facebook for chatting friends in general, skype for the face talk and Starcraft II with friends, and Vent for things like Counter-Strike scrimmages.

[Fabbrizio]

Skype and YahooMessenger (inb4 lame and out of date) cover pretty much all of my friends/etc. contacts.