AIM SQUARES OFF AGAINST MSN
AS INSTANT MESSAGING GOES
SERIOUSLY MAINSTREAM
For many of us, it was the late ‘90s when we first
became familiar with instant messaging and
the distinctive ‘culture’ that increasingly sprung
up around it. The late 1990s and early 2000s
were marked by intensifying competition
between the leading messaging platforms,
AOL’s launch of Instant Messenger – which
subsequently became widely known as ‘AIM’
- being followed by the emergence of Yahoo!
Messenger in 1998 and MSN Messenger in 1999.
It was during this time that we saw the
popularization of an unmistakable instant-
messaging ‘language’, with such acronyms as
LOL (laugh out loud), OMG (oh my God) and BRB
(be right back) continuing to be widely used on
instant messaging and social media platforms
to this day. As instant messaging technology
developed into the 2000s, users gained the
ability to easily share photos, make video calls
and even play games.
As instant-messaging ‘lingo’ continued to
flourish, so did the technology, as more and
more big (and small) players capitalized on
various areas of the emerging market. Apple,
for example, launched iChat for users of its
Mac OS X operating system in 2002, its AIM
compatibility a key feature.
Apple was to further streamline its instant
messaging offering as the Steve Jobs era
transitioned into the Tim Cook one; in 2011, the
company announced iMessage for the updated
Mac OS, and the following year, both iChat and
iMessage were effectively subsumed into the