AIM 6.9 Gets Social

AOL today officially released AIM 6.9 for Windows, introducing new features that integrate AIM with other social networks, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This new version of the venerable instant messaging program acknowledges and embraces the fact that people aren’t just on a single social network — they have a presence across many networks — and keeping up-to-date with your friends, family and associates shouldn’t require you to visit a dozen different web sites. The real social network transcends any single brand.

AIM remains free to use, supported by advertising that appears in the buddy list and chat windows. AIM 6.9 requires Windows 2000 or newer, 512 MB RAM for enhanced IM functionality, Flash and IE 6 or newer. You can download it here.

Alternate versions for Mac, Linux and web-based IM are still available, but haven’t been upgraded to match the functionality of their Windows counterpart. 

Do you use AIM? Will you upgrade?

AOL Releases AIM 6.9 Beta 3

AOL has released a new beta version of their venerable AOL Instant Messenger program. The AIM 6.9 Beta 3 sports new icons, new design, a return to the “running man” logo and integration with Bebo profiles. 

And — hold onto your seats — you now have the option to display emoticons as text! 

The new look is an improvement, but still lags behind WLM and Yahoo! Messenger. They key development with this version seems to be tighter integration with Bebo. 

Useful Links

• AIM 6.9 Beta 3
• BigBlueBall AIM Support forum

AIM For iPhone Gets an Upgrade

MARCH 4, 2009 UPDATE - The ad-free, paid version of AIM for the iPhone went up on the iTunes Application Store today. As we initially reported, it costs $2.99, and is essentially the same as the free version, with the exclusion of advertising. 

AOL has updated their AIM application for the iPhone, adding new features and a soon-to-be-released paid AIM app. The original AIM app was one of the first applications to appear on the iPhone. AOL hefts a lot of clout with millions of users and it’s Time-Warner media ties, so it’s little wonder they were featured so prominently when the iTunes Application Store launched. 

Since then an abundance of IM applications for the iPhone have sprung up, most of them offering multi-network IM — a clear advantage if your contacts are spread across several IM systems. 

This 2.0 version of AIM for the iPhone and iPod Touch adds several notable features. The AIM app is now location aware, allowing you the option of sharing where you are (with your contacts, not just anyone) . It also gives you a new buddy list group that shows you which of your contacts are nearby. Of course, for any of this to be of use, you’ve got to have contacts that are nearby, so unless you’re a student, it’s unlikely to be of much value beyond the “cool” factor. 

The more practical addition is SMS alerts. Tired of waiting for Apple to open up the push notification capability (promised in Sept. 2008!), AIM now lets you choose to remain “signed in” for up to 24 hours, even after closing the app. To your contacts, you’ll appear online, and when they send you an IM, you’ll get text notification — partially emulating push notification. Note that although AIM sends these SMS notifications for free, you may incur telecom charges for the receipt of each message (depending on your plan). 

Also new in this version is support for multiple accounts and the ability to send free SMS messages to anyone in your iPhone address book. 

What’s the catch? 

There will be two versions with essentially the same features. The free version is advertising-supported; you’ll have to put up with display ads on many of the screens. The paid version will cost $2.99 but be ad-free. 

You can download or update the free version now. The paid version will be available soon (it’s working it’s way through the iTunes approval process). 

Get AIM for the iPhone

Get another opinion…

• AIM for iPhone gets paid version, SMS alerts, location awareness – Ars Technica
• AIM beats Apple to fake background notifications on the iPhone – Venture Beat
• iPhone AIM App Gets Background Notifications, Free SMS Messages and… Ads – Gizmodo (has some good screenshots)

The Lifestream Goes Mainstream

AOL’s $850 million purchase of the Bebo social networking site may pay off after all. AOL announced today the first of a series of major project changes with the addition of lifestreaming capabilities. This is similar to the stream of activity and status updates found on rival social networks from Facebook, MySpace and FriendFeed, but with a twist. Bebo’s lifestreaming integrates these activities and status updates from a range of existing AOL features, including AIM Profiles and ICQ. Yes, the millions of existing AIM Profiles will be migrated over to Bebo this week, meaning there is a good chance you will be on Bebo, (probably without even knowing). Read more

AIM F2 Trick for Hidden Text

Do you want to hide something that isn’t really hidden? Use AIM’s F2 trick to send hidden messages to your friends. Sure it’s pointless, but its kind of neat and you will surely prove that you are IM savvy.

What is the F2 Trick?

The F2 trick uses the timestamp feature of AIM. The assumption is that most people have timestamp turned off. Pressing F2 toggles AIM’s timestamp on/off. Time stamping just lets you know when the person said what they said. Notice the time next to the name. The trick allows you to fool AIM into thinking that your message is part of the time stamp. Here’s an example of a normal conversation with timestamps turned on:

How to insert your “secret message”

Now you just open up Notepad (any other text editor will do) and type in the secret message that you want, inside of these brackets: <!– MESSAGE –>

Copy the text of whatever “secret message” you want to have. To quickly copy all the text, press CTRL-A, then CTRL-C.

Head back to AIM and type in the normal message. Paste (CTRL-V) the secret message wherever you want in the normal message. Here is an example of a successful “secret message”

Tips

• Make sure you place ANY character type in front of and in back of the hidden message. If you fail to do so, you will be punished with horrible things like: </FONT></BODY></HTML> in your “secret message”, shown in this nifty image:

• This character can be anything, such as C * $ or even just a space. What I like to do is leave the “secret message” at the end of the normal message followed by a space; the other person can’t even see it!
• Note that if you have timestamp turned on when you paste in your “secret message”, this will make your horrible, horrible secret clear to everyone! Shown in this picture below:

*NOTE* Whatever you type in as your secret message could and probably will be read, so don’t go putting your deepest and darkest secrets here unless you don’t care if other people know.

*NOTE* These tricks only work with AIM, not with AOL’s built in messenger.

Etcetera

1. One other use of the F2 trick is in your profile. To do this, go to My AIM, then Edit Profile.
2. Click Next twice to reach your More Info section. Here is where you will place a ~Secret Message~.
3. Follow the same rules as above and you can insert hidden messages in your profile, too.

Here is a glowing example of my very own My Info page:

*GASP* And no one would’ve been the wiser if not for……… F2!

Useful Links

• AIM Support forum at BigBlueBall

AIM Expressions

What are AIM Expressions?

First released with AOL Instant Messenger 5.0, AIM Expressions are a way to personalize AIM. Expressions add custom graphics to your buddy list and instant message windows. They aren’t a true application skin because they don’t change the interface, but they can be fun just the same.

Do my friends see my Expression?

Unless your friend has specifically loaded it, no. Expressions, unlike Yahoo IMvironments, are not automatically shared with the people you IM. Only you see it. They will, however, see the buddy icon used by your Expression.

Can I create my own Expression?

The short answer is yes. You can download an older, desktop program: AIM Buddy Expression Creator. They have a free trial version that they claim lets you create up to five Expressions, but when I tried it, it expired after creating only one! Otherwise, it looked pretty good and it did work.

But I would recommend the official (and free) web-based Expression Creator at http://expressions.aim.com. 

What you need to create the various images

• Buddy List Background: 130×160 BMP
• Buddy List Top: 120×60 GIF (you have to include an image, although it won’t actually be used by the Expression; AIM will automatically display an ad there)
• Buddy List Side: 60xAny GIF (the height is up to you)
• IM Background: Any sized GIF (experiment with different sizes to get the result you want)IM Side: 125xAny GIF (pick your own height)
• Buddy Icon: 48×48 GIF (if non-animated) or 50×50 GIF (if transparent or animated) must be smaller than 7 KB!

The tricky part for most is that the Buddy List Side and IM Window Side actually must be web pages hosted somewhere on the Internet (if you want to share the Expression). Set up the web pages with the images and use <BODY scroll=”no”> to turn off the scroll bars. Then enter the location for all the images and files into Expression Creator and save the Expression. That’s basically all there is to it!

If you want to share your Expression, all you need to share is the ARF file. Again, if you host this on a web server, you can create a hyperlink in this format:

<a href="aim:GetExpression?URL=http://www.bigblueball.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/civilwar.arf">Civil War Expression</a>

Replacing the URL with the proper address to your ARF file. If you’re running AIM 5.0 or newer, you can test the link and see my first attempt at creating an Expression.

Useful Links

• What is AIM?
• Brady Vercher’s AIM Expression Tutorial provides another tutorial that gives advanced users greater flexibility.
• AIM Support forum on BigBlueBall.com