A piece of my childhood died last week.

I used to spend hours pecking furiously at the keyboard, chimes ringing back and forth as hours raced by while I communicated with my friends in an amazing new way — over the Internet.

AOL Instant Messenger became a gateway for a new enterprise of communication.

It was texting before texting. It was social networking before social networking. It was revolutionary for its time.

Last week, The New York Times reported AOL would be closing the doors to its West Coast offices, notifying roughly 40 employees they would be out of a job by the end of the month.

These 40 employees worked on our beloved AIM.
More employees will be cut over the coming weeks, unnamed executives told The New York Times.

While this news isn’t exactly surprising, it still hurts to know something I used so often as a wee lad will cease to exist in the upcoming months.

Although the firing of these employees won’t end AIM immediately, it does usher the end of updates and patches, which will eventually lead to the demise of the messaging application.

While some may scoff at my dismay for the termination of the once-great instant messenger, if you think about it, AIM influenced much of the way we use the Internet today.

Back before texting and smartphones ruled the world, online instant messengers were the only way to quickly communicate with another person beside picking up the phone.

AIM users could also customize their font size, color and background, giving them the first opportunity to have their own online persona. People were finally able to freely express who they were on the Internet.

AIM also led to sites like My Buddy Profile, where users were able to customize a profile with activities, likes/dislikes, quotes and anything else they wanted people to check out.
Sound familiar?

I’m not saying Mark Zuckerberg got the idea to create Facebook directly from AOL, but shortly after My Buddy Profile arose, Friendster became big. After Friendster there was MySpace.

And we all know that after MySpace died, Facebook took over our lives.

Unfortunately for AOL, AIM wasn’t able to evolve with the times and quickly became irrelevant. AIM has become nothing but a memory to former users.

Texting was the leading cause of the downfall. Why sit on a computer all day waiting for someone to sign on when a quick text could do the same thing?

Also, other services such as Facebook chat and Gchat over Google’s Gmail provided the same type of service to a much broader band of users.

Before it goes away forever, I encourage everyone to sign into your AIM profile one last time. See if you can remember who all those crazy screennames belonged to and all the fun times you had chatting with them in 24-point Comic Sans font.

Hell, if someone is actually online, send them an IM and see what happens.

While certainly outdated in this day and age, it’s sad to see something once so popular and widely used become discarded as nothing but a piece of technological history.

As you sign onto Facebook or send someone a text message, remember that none of this would be possible without the existence of AOL Instant Messenger.
Rest in Peace, AIM.