AOL to shut down 20-years old AIM Instant Messenger on December 15, 2017

America Online (AOL) is shutting down its Instant Messenger service (AIM) after nearly 20 years.

AIM was one of the first and most successful instant messengers, widely used in the late ‘90s and even throughout the 2000s.

AIM was launched in 1997 for the Microsoft Windows operating system.

AOL had to make this decision because of the competition from other instant messenger services and the growth of smartphone text messaging
AOL will be discontinuing AIM effective December 15, 2017.
Few other messenger platforms have also closed in recent years, including Microsoft's MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.