On this episode of Version History, we tell the story of AIM’s rise, its importance for multiple generations of internet users, and its ultimate inability to keep up with social networks, texting, and other messaging apps. David Pierce, Victoria Song, and author and journalist Kyle Chayka document the platform’s creation inside of AOL, try to make sense of why it was so vital to internet life for a while, and wonder what might have happened if AIM had stuck around.
Good memories.