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SchwarzTech — Snippet: AOL’s Instant Messenger Was the Unsung Hero of the Early-Aughts

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Snippet: AOL’s Instant Messenger Was the Unsung Hero of the Early-Aughts ☇

Shared by Eric Schwarz on July 21, 2026

Matthew Haughey:

I want to say between the years of 2000 and about 2010, I always had an AIM client running on any computer I was using while I was sitting at it. It was kind of like using Slack at a workplace today, but you’d glance over at your list to see who was online currently and catch up with people constantly throughout the day, or even just read their away messages.

Back in the early days of blogging, people who read blogs used to joke that everyone with a blog seemed to know everyone else with a blog and they linked to one another and talked on their blogs like some sort of "secret cabal" or "cult". And yeah, we had annual gatherings like SXSW where bloggers met up in person but the simple fact was we also had AIM running on our desktops.

Maybe it was 9am and I was procrastinating before starting work, and I’d see my friend Dan in Wisconsin that also ran a blog was online and I could tell him how much I enjoyed a recent post of his, or ask him what he was doing for the upcoming holiday weekend and hear weird stuff like how everyone in the midwest somehow owns a boat.

Every blogger knew every other blogger because we talked on AIM constantly throughout the day. I probably read 200-300 daily-updated blogs back in this era and I probably had 50-60 blog authors in my AIM list each day that I could connect with.

I think this is somehow what got lost in the transition from various instant messaging services to texting and Slack/Teams. I miss the ability to sit at my computer and see who was around and fine with being interrupted based on their status—I’d love for Apple to build that into iMessage as that would cover a lot of people I annoy communicate with regularly. It also felt like people were more inclined to share their screen name with strangers. Maybe that was a byproduct of the time, but when you didn’t want to be bothered you could simply sign off. Unless you’re blocking someone, texting is sort of an all-or-nothing proposition instead.

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