RSSAOL Primes AIM With Video, Multiple Logins
By David Worthington | Published December 10, 2003, 8:07 PM
America Online today unleashed a new beta build of its instant messaging client, delivering on the company's promise of rich media with the addition of live video. AIM 5.5.3501 brings AOL's IM offering up to par with rivals MSN and Yahoo!.
In addition to video messaging, AIM now permits screen name linking, which allows users to log in under multiple accounts concurrently within a single session.
AOL promised video over IM shortly after details on the upcoming AOL client upgrade, code-named Tahiti, emerged in October. Today's build makes good on that promise, provided customers are running Microsoft's Windows XP. The AIM Web site also makes note that performance is superior over a local area network or broadband connection.
The company was previously barred from incorporating such a feature into its wares following a post-merger FCC restriction that allowed competitors to one-up the online powerhouse.
However, all of the US Government imposed regulations were lifted last August.
Today's AIM beta release comes on the heels of several other significant upgrades to AOL software.
As first reported by BetaNews, AOL quietly switched on a new feature in its instant messaging network allowing concurrent logins from multiple locations with the same screen name, while broadcasting incoming messaging to each point of access simultaneously. The feature was extended to include client-side support for multiple screen names.
Now, each screen name's buddy list can be displayed within the same client application. For privacy reasons, a single click can set each account's status to appear either on or offline to other AIM users.
AOL also recently released an add-on to Tahiti's standalone dialer that permits open mail access to e-mail programs other than its own. The company is rushing to complete work on the AOL client update by early next year, roughly around the same timeframe that MSN intends to launch MSN 9.0 on January 8.
The new AOL client will come in two flavors: a light low-RAM version for customers with under-powered PCs, and a regular full featured client. Both editions are set to include new spyware protection developed by AOL.
AIM Build 5.5.3501 Beta may be downloaded via FileForum.
It seems that in this latest build I have no option to stop the AIM Today from loading. Has anyone found how to shut this off?
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|Has anyone else noticed bugs with away messages?
For example, with this latest version I tried it for a few hours and I noticed that when I switched users on my Windows XP computer my away message was taken down and replaced with the windows session log off default so when I log back on my away message is completely gone.
In the current version, the version before this one, I ran into a different bug. When I went to select an away message from the list of existing the message I clicked on would never be selected it would either select the one before it or the one after it on the list.
Anyone else have these problems?
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|This is the best AIM i have seen yet. It is a downfall that I can't use the video chat yet, but it is a plus that AIM is going to support it. I love the fact I can go on more than one screen names at a time, and I can log off of one screen name, but still talk to people I want to on it, so I dont have to talk to anybody that I dont want to. AOL is a greedy empire of guys that forgot the meaning of quality, and got the idea of quantity. But it seems like the only free thing AOL has to offer us is one of the best. If you dont want the spyware on your computer from the games, dont install the wild tangent stuff, I use MSN to play games with my friends, and I still talk to them on AIM and me nor my friends have complained yet. You all need to stop complaining because this is something we dont have to pay for, and if you still onsist on complaining, make something better than AIM, but I doubt you can...
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|AOL is AOL. People keep forgetting that. What would you have them do? They want games available in AIM. Do you feel they should have built their own from scratch? That's a lot of development into something that would be far easier contracted to a company who specializes in that - for example WildTangent. As with numerous other things, if this bothers you don't install it. It's not that hard.
AOL has taken some great steps the past few months. Tahiti is a big step up, allowing me to check my AOL mail in outlook express and not having to be on AOL's client software is a big step, and this new multi login client is a big step too. Some people use a different name at work than at home etc. Makes life easier. Good job AOL.
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|Any word on whether the new AIM is compatible with Apple's iChat AV or iSight?
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|"Both editions are set to include new spyware protection developed by AOL"...Does this mean it will block the instalation of AIM which in it's new betas is bundles with WILD TANGENT, which is SPYWARE. AOL makes me sick.
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|What makes me sick is people that respond to thing like this and are wrong. Wild Tangent does create spyware, no doubt. What AIM is using are the Wild Tangent tools to play games, not thier spyware tools. Wild Tangent actually started off making web games like this before thier "branch" into the dark side.
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|Neither of your comments have anything to do with the question you replied to. Why didn't you start a new topic for your comments instead of replying to that one? Back to the subject, I certainly hope that AOL's IM video will be compatible with iChat AV, so I can use it instead of Yahoo Messenger to chat with my wife when I'm away. I use a PowerBook and she has a Dell desktop.
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|Well, to answer my own (and the original poster's) question, nope, it doesn't seem to work with iChat AV. Now THAT was a stupid move.
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|I'm sure they have a developement department... why not ask them to make these compatible?
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