AOL announced on Wednesday the launch of AIM.com and redesigned AIM Today companion screen. AOL went for a change in the aesthetic of their instant messaging, allowing users to both communicate and look over headlines and such.
This move reaffirms AOL’s portal status and they’ve gone after a younger market with this venue. Recent studies show a big advantage both AOL and Yahoo has over Google as far as keeping the customers on their sites is the instant messaging service. AOL looks to expand that with improvements to their service.
“AIM and AIM Mail users are incredibly connected and like to multi-task. It’s typical for them to send SMS text messages, check e-mail and exchange instant messages, all while searching the Web and listening to AOL Radio,” said Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president and general manager, AIM and ICQ, America Online, Inc. “That’s why we have updated AIM.com and AIM Today to give users more convenient access to our suite of integrated communications tools as well as our continually updated content and rich entertainment services.”
AOL also said they were starting an upgrade of AIM 5.9 that brings AIM Today and the AIM Explorer browser as optional features. The tabbed browser won’t affect the default browser settings and offers integration with the AIM Mail and AOL Mail services.
AIM.com will offer the instant messenger work with Windows, Mac and Linux and will be loaded with the new Triton beta software as well as WAP 2 versions of Mobile AIM. AIM.com also offers the AIM Blog service, games and expressions.
The service also includes bots for various purposes including a baseball stats and a MillionaireIM bot which allows users to be part of the “Ask the Audience” lifeline.
The companion screen will give some groovy stuff including the LiveWeb feature and complete search features. They even have the option to their popularity through AIMFight by listing their screen names.
For marketing and advertising purposes, AOL says 50% of the market niche will be the teen and young adult demographic so sought after by marketers. Advertisers will surely take advantage of this based on the studies showing just how much time people do spend on AIM. With people spending hours and hours on instant messaging compared the the minutes on searching, this is certainly a venue rich for AOL and advertisers alike.
John Stith is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
