AOL Opens AIM To Third-Party Developers: Some Cool Stuff’s Already Here
by Russell Shaw
AOL is taking some major steps to open up its leading AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) utility up to open source, third-party applications.
First, the geek stuff. Then, I promise, the cool stuff.
The crucible for all this is Open AIM, a developer environment in which AOL now documents and publishes the protocol used to communicate to the AIM network. Developers can now write third party apps with customizable security features, write “user experiences†without AOL’s formal OK, and offer their completed apps on a new AIM Gallery page that will be heavily promoted to AIM users looking for cool stuff.
I’ve been touring the Open AIM page, and it appears at least a few of these apps are already available as plug-ins for both mobile and PC-based AIM users.
As I show you at the top of this post, here’s QQ Games, a multi-player game plug-in environment for AIM, and Prof Gilzot, which the AIM coder geeks present as a feature that once plugged in to AIM, enables users to “vote on daily polls or test your skills on celebrity, driving exam, movie, sat prep, music, smarter than a 5th grader and many other quizzes. Just IM the Professor and and type “hiâ€!
Well, “hiâ€,†Prof. Gilzot. Just don’t test me on my parallel parking skills, wouldya? A little rusty on those
