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

    I believe they had international numbers but they weren't like a major presence outside of the US.

    Ah mystery solved then. I remember them being really into The White Stripes, so probably a western weeb.

      • 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.