The Running Man Stops Running: Never mind the Ides of March, it was today, Dec. 15, the Ides of December, when an era came to an end.
AOL Instant Messenger, and its iconic “Running Man” logo, have ended their run. AOL said back in October that today would be the day it would pull the plug on AIM after 20 years of faithful service, and probably billions of chat messages. You might be dating yourself a bit, but if you were around when the internet was coming of age in the mid-to-late 1990s, and even into the early 2000s, you probably used AIM as your first, real, online messaging tool. (E-mail notwithstanding, of course.)
At its peak, in 2001, AIM was estimated to have 100 million users worldwide. But over time, as AOL’s prominence in the internet world declined (the company is now owned by Verizon), and then everything from Facebook to Twitter to Slack to just your regular cellphone texting program took off, the need for AIM declined. And along with that need, AIM’s popularity and usage also sagged. That’s why AIM is going the way of the Microsoft Zune (although the Zune wasn’t anywhere close to being as popular as AIM was, but you get the idea.)
So, if you still happened to have an AIM account, today was the day to bid your adieus. You can visit a support page for information about what to do now. You might even get one last look at the Running Man while you’re there.
Pick A Song, Any Song: Pandora is expanding its on-demand music-listening capabilities to users who would like to listen for free. Of course, there is a slight catch. Pandora is letting users of its free, ad-supported service choose songs they want to hear in exchange for watching a 15-second video ad. After watching the ad, listeners will then be able to pick specific songs for between 15 minutes and an hour before having to watch another ad.
Hey, Big Spender: High prices and a fiercely competitive housing market are nothing new to anyone who’s lived in the Bay Area for longer than a day and a half. But, now, it appears that even those looking for a place in the so-called “premium housing” market are having a hard time finding the home of their dreams, according to real estate site Trulia, which said the number of premium homes available in San Jose is down by 42 percent from a year ago. Oh, and what makes something a premium home? A price tag of $2.5 million, or more.
Quote Of The Day: “It’s possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about gay people if we want them to be able to say novel things about physics.” — Y Combinator president Sam Stovall, in a blog post this week. Stovall was writing about his concerns about how innovation in the tech industry, in particular, could be at risk due to a societal crackdown on free speech.
