Version History AIM: Away message
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Dec 21, 2025 
Kyle Chayka, an author and journalist focused on internet culture, explores the nostalgic world of AOL Instant Messenger. He dives into how AIM transformed teenage social interactions with its signature buddy lists and away messages. The discussion highlights the app's innovative features and its surprising rise and fall, all while reminiscing about its emotional impact. Chayka and the hosts reflect on AIM's lasting legacy in modern messaging and debate whether we miss AIM itself or the era it represents.
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AOL's Walled Garden Shaped AIM's Rise
- AOL was a bundled, walled-garden internet that positioned services like AIM as gateways into its ecosystem.
- That closed architecture both helped AIM spread inside AOL and later constrained AIM's ability to evolve with the open web.
Buddy List And A Rogue Launch
- Barry Appelman's buddy list showed who was online and became a revolutionary social UI element for AIM.
- A small AIM team secretly released AIM on an AOL FTP and 900 people started using it that night, despite executives wanting to kill it.
AIM Was Social, Not Just Chat
- AIM combined buddy lists, away messages, profiles, and customizations to create a new social communication pattern.
- That combination made AIM feel like a self-contained social network, not just a chat tool.