After years of jealously guarding access to its AOL Instant Messenger network, America Online is openly flirting with third-party developers looking to connect to its AIM service.
AOL said that it has launched Open AIM, a free developer kit that allows the creation of plug-ins, mashups and third-party applications that connect to AOL’s 63 million AIM users, which analysts said was a significant move for a company that has traditionally cordoned off its services.
The Open AIM program gives smaller companies, Web communities and developers access to the code base of AIM Triton, AOL’s next-generation IM client, and the ability to create their own versions of the AIM service.
What this means is that literally anyone can build a plug-in for AIM, an AIM client or a mashup to sell to consumers. They can even put advertising around what they create, said Jamie Odell, director of product management for AIM.
Mashups, which are popular in the Web 2.0 realm, are Web sites or Web applications that combine content from several sources into a seamlessly integrated experience. Several big-name companies, including Amazon.com, eBay, Google, Yahoo and Skype, have expanded their footprint by experimenting with mashups and giving developers free access to their databases.
"It is a dramatic turnaround for AOL," said Joe Wilcox, an analyst at Jupiter Research, who called the move shrewd and well timed. AOL is "opening up to other companies, some of whom can create products to compete with AIM," he added.
Communicating by typing messages, making phone calls or video-calls and the ability to see if recipients are online at the same time are seen as integral to successful future versions of Internet services, analysts said.
Tapping into a network of global developers could help AOL gain an edge over rival Microsoft.
In an interview with eWEEK, Odell said the AIM Pro client recently rolled out for business users is the first high-end example of a custom AIM client that can be created with the API Application Programming Interface released with Open AIM.
It also includes access to enterprise IM users via AOL’s partnerships with the Microsoft Live Communications Server, IBM Lotus Sametime 7.0, Reuters 5.0 Communicator, Antepo, Parlano, Omnipod and Jabber.
Justin Uberti, chief architect of AIM, said the Open AIM initiative gives developers access to the entire network of users, including those running the proprietary AOL member service, the AIM and ICQ services, and Apple’s iChat service, which is hosted by AOL.
A key part of the initiative, Uberti stressed, is opening up access in a secure way. He said the Open AIM program will encrypt all communications between the user’s PC and the AIM network using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), regardless of whether or not the user has a digital certificate.
The next wave of opportunities will come as a result of allowing developers to innovate, Kevin Conroy, executive vice president of AOL Media Networks, said in an interview.
AIM, whose services reach some 63 million users, is seen by the company as a critical component to enable it to play a larger role in the social networking market, where users meet new people through existing contacts.
Uberti said the new developer clients will be hosted by AOL, meaning that users will be able to sign on using their existing AIM screen names and passwords. Separate licensing deals are required for businesses that want to use their own user name space.
"AIM is the original social network," Conroy said. "We are looking for ways for consumers to be able to extend their social networks via an already popular platform."
Uberti said Open AIM will facilitate up to 250,000-log-ins per day or 2 million-log-ins per month.
It will also support digital certificates to offer additional security for peer-to-peer operations and to guarantee user identity.