Dulles, Va. — On the heels of Open AIM, Time Warner’s AOL today introduced “Open Voice APIs” to provide third-party developers and VoIP device manufacturers with open standards protocols that will allow its VoIP service to run on softphones, the software that enables computerized calling, SIP-enabled devices, as well as cell phones with Wi-Fi connectivity.
AIM Call Out is a pay-as-you-go outbound voice calling service built right into AIM that lets users make calls to landline and cell phones in more than 200 countries. This service complements the existing AIM Talk service, a free PC-to-PC voice calling service available to AIM users.
Users can as well make phone-to-phone calls using the Web Connect feature within the AIM Call Out service. Users merely enter their phone number and then the phone number of a friend. In a few seconds, the user’s phone will ring and then connect them to their friend’s phone. AIM users can control all of their voice activities using AIM Call Out and Web Connect from their personal Voice Dashboard and can learn more about the services at http://call.aim.com.
“By unfolding our voice communications gateway to developers we are furthering the mission of AIM which is to facilitate the world’s real-time conversations,” said Steve Murphy, Senior Vice President, AOL. “We are building on the popularity of the Open AIM program and opening up the AIM Call Out platform, enabling open standards voice communication services to proliferate in the marketplace.”
Many users dislike running multiple IM clients, so many switched from AIM to Skype because they could get IM, plus voice and video — all in a single client. Why bog down system resources with multiple IM clients? I will say AOL has done a good job of beefing up the feature-set of AIM, but one has to wonder if Skype’s momentum is unstoppable.
The AOL Developer Network provides third-party developers with straight access to AOL’s technology platforms and open APIs. AOL stated the available open APIs, tools, and documentation for services such as AOL Video Uploads, Open Xdrive, Truveo, Userplane, MapQuest, Winamp, OpenAuth, and others, can be viewed at http://dev.aol.com.
The move comes after AOL’s opening of its hugely popular instant messaging program to developers, and echoes many of the announcements rival portal Yahoo has been making about opening its core services to developers.