I recently had a memory come back to being on aol sometime in 2001 and chatting with someone who claimed to be from Japan. This was in an anime chat room I used to visit.

Was the service available outside the USA?

    • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      7 days ago

      Was that always the case? I remember aim being an app a couple years after I had left aol and I still used it but I wasn't sure if early on it was.

      • bortsampson [he/him, any]
        ·
        7 days ago

        The AIM protocal (oscar???) was spun off around 2000 and could be used outside of AOL with the AIM client or a 3rd party utility.

        • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          ·
          7 days ago

          I'm sure it was earlier than that. I'm in the UK, and I'm pretty sure I was using it at home in the mid 90s, and almost definitely when I was living away in 1998. I remember using Trillian to speak on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and a few others around the same time :)

            • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              ·
              6 days ago

              I must be thinking of one of the other chat programs then, Pidgin maybe? I could have sworn it was Trillian though.

              I remember using some form of AIM after I moved in to my first place in 1998, because I was keeping in touch with friends on it without having the full AOL software installed.