AIM-ICQ

June 12, 2003 8:26 AM

From the better late than never dept: Now you can send instant messages between AIM/AOL and ICQ. AOL finally added interactivity support for their two IM protocols. Best new feature...
IM with yourself
Once you have the latest ICQ beta software, you'll be able to IM with the AIM and/or AOL on your own computer!
posted by riffola (27 comments total)

Or you can just use Trillian.
posted by PrinceValium at 8:35 AM on June 12, 2003

one word: trillian.
posted by quonsar at 8:35 AM on June 12, 2003

bwah ha ha!
posted by quonsar at 8:36 AM on June 12, 2003

Oh come on, I know about Trillian, but this is AOL man! I get to IM with myself, does Trillian let me do that?
posted by riffola at 8:40 AM on June 12, 2003

or you could just use tr...damn.

how long before the fabled AIM/MSN compatibility thing happens?

riffola: yep.
posted by cheaily at 8:41 AM on June 12, 2003

Does anyone use ICQ anymore? How many digits are UINs now? How utterly useless to have something like 8923471 as your unique IM identifier!

Trillian gets it done well, though the new MSN beta is quite cool. (webcam/audio support)
posted by mad at 8:45 AM on June 12, 2003

Or for the cool kids, iChat.

(bitter because there's no Trillian for mac)
posted by padraigin at 8:47 AM on June 12, 2003

On the "IM with yourself" front, Metafilter is once again ahead of the curve.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:47 AM on June 12, 2003

I actually up and purchased Trillian Pro last year. Probably one of the better online software purchases I've ever made: Solid performance, good support, no bug/crashing/compatibility issues to speak of, and I've yet to use many of its features to their full extent (i.e. the RDF/RSS headline listing service, the mp3 player, the IRC client, etc).

I only wish they'd come out with a new version so that there'd be more cool features I don't have the time to use. Fantastic stuff, kiddies.
posted by thanotopsis at 8:53 AM on June 12, 2003

But what if I have nothing to say to myself, do they just send away messages to each other?
posted by mss at 9:02 AM on June 12, 2003

mac users looking for an all-in-one client should check out proteus.
posted by paulschreiber at 9:18 AM on June 12, 2003

You could AIM yourself before. It was a pretty "Malkovich-Malkovich" experience.
posted by scarabic at 9:21 AM on June 12, 2003

I was being sarcastic about the best new feature. I mean it's really not a feature, and not something that would be obviously sarcastic, but I guess was wrong.
posted by riffola at 9:29 AM on June 12, 2003

Er "something that would be obviously sarcastic" not "not something..."
posted by riffola at 9:30 AM on June 12, 2003

Riffola, I think you are now IM'ing to yourself
posted by mss at 9:56 AM on June 12, 2003

padraigin: check out proteus. I've come to like it better than Trillian.
posted by benjh at 10:00 AM on June 12, 2003

Trillian Pro is pretty sweet, though i also don't know how to use all the features. Most likely a good thing i don't have the IRC functioning.
posted by th3ph17 at 10:03 AM on June 12, 2003

Bless you, benjh. I will look into this further.
posted by padraigin at 10:21 AM on June 12, 2003

AOL bought ICQ five years ago and it took them that long to integrate? Sheesh.
posted by kfury at 10:23 AM on June 12, 2003

sweet! now I can get spam IM's on AIM and ICQ! ahh, integration.
posted by iamjacksamnesia at 10:33 AM on June 12, 2003

padraigin: check out proteus. I've come to like it better than Trillian.

Weird.

How does one check the other out to choose when the two don't run on the same system?
posted by linux at 11:05 AM on June 12, 2003

The reason it took 5 years was that AOL had to transition the ICQ system to use the same protocol as AIM. Yea, ICQ speaks OSCAR just like AIM. And they even use the same servers at AOL. The letting the two talk to each other was trivial then.
posted by jmauro at 11:33 AM on June 12, 2003

While we're linking up apps... I prefer Fire on OS X.

...And i've always been able to chat with myself via AIM... just add yourself to your own buddy list and type away. Its a good way to test if you're really connected without bugging your friends.
posted by 10sball at 11:37 AM on June 12, 2003

The reason it took 5 years was that AOL had to transition the ICQ system to use the same protocol as AIM. Yea, ICQ speaks OSCAR just like AIM. And they even use the same servers at AOL. The letting the two talk to each other was trivial then.


ICQ moved over to the OSCAR protocol three years back, with the added bonus of having a massive banner ad in each chat window. AOL actually released an AIM beta client back then that would allow you log into your ICQ account through the AIM program.

I'm a Trillian user who's still bitter about AOL's purchase of ICQ.
posted by Darke at 12:05 PM on June 12, 2003

Dear god did they ever stink up ICQ Lite with ads. The ICQ/AIM interoperation is fantastic however. About frigging time. Now to strip these ads...
posted by frenetic at 6:00 PM on June 12, 2003

MP3 player? IRC client? If I was looking for bloat, I could just use the official ICQ client...
This is what an IM client should look like: Miranda ICQ.. and it does ICQ, AOL, MSN, YIM, Jabber etc. too (using plugins).
posted by c3o at 11:19 AM on June 13, 2003

There's no mp3 player in Trillian, at least by default. There's a plugin availible to interface with Winamp.
posted by Darke at 1:51 PM on June 13, 2003