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AOL Opens AIM API to Developers

MONDAY JUNE 12 2006 10:00 AM

Submitted by WilWheaton. Edited By WilWheaton.

TAGS: AOL, AIM, Software

AOL is set to announce that they're finally opening up the AOL API to all developers:

AOL was set to announce on Monday that it is opening up its AIM Software Development Kit to Linux, Mac OS X and Pocket PC developers. In addition, the company is providing the ability for developers to build customized plug-ins and other software that work with AOL's location-based services, PC-to-PC voice calling functionality and multi-party voice chat.

Developers also will be able to create customized AIM Bots, opt-in screen names which help users send pictures or podcasts to their blogs, among other activities.

This is great news for anyone who's wanted to develop their own AIMBot, as I wrote in March, on my blog:

For example, if I did a WWdNBot, you could talk to it like an old irc bot, by asking it FAQs, or asking it if I had any appearances coming up, or when the next book would be released, or something like that. I could also use it to automatically tell you when I updated my blog, with a link to the entry.

Or how about a FarkBot, which tells you when a new headline hits the main page (with a link) and would tell you about Fark cliches?

Or a SuicidegirlsBot which would tell you when a friend's journal was updated, a new item was on the newswire, or your favorite girl had released a new photoset?

This is a smart step forward by AOL to embrace the social networking (or "2.0") philosophy that's beginning to dominate several online communities, and could indicate a shift in their corporate attitude, from a top-down content-delivery model to a more user-oriented model. Whatever their reasons, we should see some pretty cool independently-developed AIM features in the near future.

5 Comments

zoton

Kuwait

November 2005

JUN 12, 2006 10:02 AM

Hrm...... sg IM spinoff ?!?!?!!?!?!

joshuaheretic

Urbana, IL

December 2004

JUN 12, 2006 10:34 AM

Hopefully the Gaim Project will use this to shore up their support for things like file-transfer and direct P2P messaging once the 2.0-series gets out of beta. I've always had problems with file-transfer stability under third-party clients that use the TOC or reverse-engineered OSCAR protocols.

I wonder if this is a further symptom of AOL going under?

malkav11

Saint Paul, MN

July 2003

JUN 12, 2006 11:09 AM

Maybe there will be cool independently developed features...but I'm not sure it's possible to add anything that would convince me to use the actual AIM client. So unless this will also mean feature adds for Adium X....

WilWheaton

Los Angeles, CA

June 2005

JUN 12, 2006 03:09 PM

malkav11 said:
Maybe there will be cool independently developed features...but I'm not sure it's possible to add anything that would convince me to use the actual AIM client. So unless this will also mean feature adds for Adium X....

Agreed. I could care less about the official client, but the opportunity for anyone to develop various kinds of bots (that will work equally well in gaim, ichat, trillian, or whatever) is why I figured this story was newsworthy. Hell, if I understand the news correctly, someone could even develop their own client that hooks into the AIM servers. That could mean branded clients from all sorts of places, from Slashdot to SG to WWdN.

guyincognito

Minneapolis, MN

September 2004

JUN 12, 2006 04:46 PM

In your blog, you mention a startup fee, but I wasn't able to find anything in the API FAQ (other than you have to apply for a key/fingerprint). [1]

I may be mistaken, but aren't there already 3rd party libraries (search for aim on sourceforge.net [2]) that allow you to automate the basic AIM functionality? They've been used for everything from simple bots to mass porno spam blasters (at least that's what I call them).

I don't use AIM much at all other than to keep in contact with a few friends that use Yahoo or AIM. I prefer MSN which has an abundance of 3rd party developer libraries that allow you to write bots or interact with the network. One of my favorite examples of a good idea for a bot is the Encarta MSN bot. [3] It's fun to abuse him (it?) with questions like:

Am I pretty?

[1] http://developer.aim.com/faq.jsp#usage
[2] http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&words=aim
[3] add encarta@conversagent.com to your Messenger contacts list