IM Market Share

According to the latest figures from Neilsen/Netratings, AOL still has a commanding lead in the IM market.

• AOL: 53 million
• MSN: 27 million
• Yahoo: 22 million
• Google: 866,000

AOL understands the value of those subscribers, even if most of them are free AIM accounts. Having a customer connection provides value, even if that customer is using a third-party IM program. So AOL decides to protect it's subscriber base by offering developers a toolkit to create their own AIM-compatible instant messengers.

At the other end of the spectrum you have Google. Google recently opened up their Google Talk client by integrating it with Gmail as chat, complete with chat logs in the inbox and an integrated contact list. This helps them expand their subscriber base by pulling people in from Gmail. But that's not enough, so Google has also bought their way in to AOL's vast subscriber base. With their investment in AOL, Google has announced their intention to provide interoperability between AIM and Google Talk, further expanding their market reach.

Battle lines are drawn

So with AOL and Google in bed together, where does that leave MSN and Yahoo? Together. Back in October 2005 MSN and Yahoo announced their plans to connect Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger (the new moniker for the next generation of MSN Messenger), sometime later this spring.

So let's look at how the battle lines are shaping up:

• AOL + Google: 53.86 million
• MSN + Yahoo: 49 million

As you can see, it's a much closer race. AOL has been losing ground as MSN and Yahoo gain, and Google is likely to see a big boost from their Gmail integration.

IM fans will win in the end, as instant messaging choices open up further. Hopefully as the IM giants open their doors to interoperability, they'll find more benefits than disadvantages, and we'll get true interoperability sooner.

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