New AIM Today Adds Feeds; Tabbed Browsing

[Jeff]

On Wednesday, AIM 5.9 for Windows users were treated to an updated AIM Today screen that goes far beyond the previous capabilities. While the AIM Today screen received a facelift, the real upgrade is in the incorporation of AOL Explorer.

The new AIM Today screen is powered by AOL Explorer -- a web browser based on Internet Explorer -- and includes features such as tabbed browsing, access to your AIM.com email (which now gives you 2GB of free email), and easy access to RSS feeds.

To AOL's credit, they have introduced AOL Explorer quietly. It doesn't attempt to hijack my preferences and make itself my default browser, as both IE and Firefox do. It just subtly shows up via the AIM Today screen when you sign-in to AIM.

And quite honestly, my first impressions are favorable. I like the Feeds option, and as you can see, you can easily add your own feeds, including the BigBlueBall IM news and our forum feed. This makes it really easy to keep up with the latest instant messaging news or follow along with the latest forum discussions.

AOL Explorer also picked up the fact that my start page was BigBlueBall.com, and displayed that on another tab. A nice touch that helped me warm up to their new browser. Nothing is more frustrating than software products that assume I automatically would want to make their website my start page.

Unlike the AIM Today screen of the past, the new AIM Today in AOL Explorer is resizeable, too. You can maximize it to fill your screen, or make it smaller or larger to suit your personal preference.

Along with the update to AIM Today and the use of AOL Explorer, AOL also introduced an updated AIM.com website.

I'm not ready to switch to a new browser by any means, but I will keep AOL Explorer around for a while and see how I like it. It might just find a permanent home on my hard drive yet.