One of the pioneers of the instant messaging apps, AOL Instant Messenger is shutting down on December 15th 2017. The news comes 20 years after the launch of AIM, which became a wildly popular feature of AOL, the largest internet provider at the time.

Verizon acquired AOL in 2015 and merged it into a unit called Oath in 2017. VP of Oath said:

AIM tapped into new digital technologies and ignited a cultural shift, but the way in which we communicate with each other has profoundly changed. As a result we’ve made the decision that we will be discontinuing AIM effective 15 December, 2017. We are more excited than ever to continue building the next generation of iconic [...]