AOL Gets It Right With Open AIM 2.0 - Embraces Meebo and eBuddy

Published: March 5, 2008, 3:15 am

Tags: company amp 038 product profiles, aol, ebuddy, meebo

AOL is pushing their two year old OpenAim initiative much further this morning with OpenAIM 2.0. There are three key changes of note. First they are now embracing services that they previously tried to stop - multiheaded clients and websites that allow users to access all of the major instant messaging platforms in one place. These are desktop services like Pidgin (open source), Adium (Mac) and Trillian (Windows). And web based services like Meebo and eBuddy. Today those services have to hack in to MSN, Yahoo and AOL services (Google Gtalk is open). Now AOL is giving them unfettered access, too. What that means is that AOL goes from being in a position of half ignoring services like Meebo and half vaguely threatening to sue them, to fully embracing and supporting the services. Second, AOL is also removing the usage restrictions that were put in place two years ago that restricted big services from using them (again, forcing Meebo, eBuddy and others to hack in). Third, AOL is saying

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