What was the best IM platform from the early 2000s

[Aulayna]

Nowadays it's all about the Wutsapp and Bookface Messenger and Dizcerd but what platform was you go-to in the early 2000s?

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

I have the fondest memories of MSN Messenger. Especially with EoFF users, I remember countless members giving out their hotmail address. Members who haven't been online in years still have their chat email linked in their profile and it's one of the biggest tells that they haven't been here in years.

At some point or another I've used all of them to reach as many friends as possible, but MSN was the one I was on every single day talking to EoFF members. I'll still sometimes look up MSN sounds on YouTube just to hear them again.

I think it's fair to say AOL had the biggest reach in popular culture in terms of widespread commercials. The "You've got mail!" was inescapable back then.

While i'm fondly thinking about those days, I'd like to plug a very cheap game that will give you all the feels. I talk about it every chance I get when a topic like this comes up.

76782


Emily is Away is a Steam game that is basically an AOL/MSN simulator. Set in the early-to-mid 2000s, Emily Is Away tells the story of the protagonist's relationship with a girl, Emily, over the course of five years, from the senior year of high school to the senior year of college. The game is presented through a chat client on Windows XP styled after ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger, specifically their builds in the early-to-mid 2000s, complete with other users' profiles and interface.

The nostalgia is hardcore. Everything from the avatar pics, to the goofy name taglines, away messages that are song lyrics, topical references of that time period. The first game is free. I highly recommend looking into it if you used chatrooms in the early 2000s. The story is bittersweet, and your conversation with Emily resembles how you'd imagine your conversations going with your closest friends of that time. Looking to the future, hoping you'll never drift apart, but inevitably doing so.

There is a second game also available, with more friends to talk to and a narrative that branches more.There's even a link to a fake YouTube homescreen that plays videos from that time period and looks like YouTube did around that time period as well. Even if you don't check out the game, check out this cool "YouTube" link for nostalgia.

http://emilyisaway.com/youtoob/0fwLvHR7Rgw/

[Psychotic]

MSN > AIM > Y!M > mIRC

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

One thing I'll say about people who used Yahoo is that it definitely set itself apart from the others as a "meet singles in your area" type of chat client, where as I feel like a lot of people who used MSN and AIM were teenagers who used them to talk to friends. Not to say that they wouldn't chat up their long distance relationship partners there.

But Yahoo was the DTF client.

[WarZidane]

It's not the one I used the most, but ICQ was the best one in the early days just on a technical and UI level, IMO.

[Mr Gashtacular]

MSN has the best memories for me for sure. It got really dumb as well, with the weird nudge feature and everything else. I think I had 3 AIM buddies because no one I knew in the UK really used it, unless they were extremely online. I actually liked the simplicity of it, but rarely got to use it for much.

[Freya]

MSN for sure. I had hundreds of eoffers at one point on mine.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

Friends from school, friends from MySpace, friends from EoFF

This is the holy trinity of an MSN friend's list.

[Jessweeee♪]

As far as functionality goes, I feel like Yahoo was superior and a really underrated chat client. I loved the games and cooperative paint function (though maybe the other clients had that too and I just don't remember ever using them).

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I pretty much only used MSN when I was younger to talk with friends on a different forum I used to be a part of. I feel like I used to play checkers a lot through MSN as well with people.

I used AIM when I got a little older just because that’s what my school friends used, but I never liked it as much.

[Spuuky]

ICQ was by far the best actual platform. You could even send SMS messages to cell phones with it (internationally!).

[Del Murder]

MSN had a messenger?

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

MSN had a messenger?

You may remember its later name, Windows Live Messenger.

[Del Murder]

Well I never bothered with any of this stuff. EoFF mognet messages was as 'instant' as I needed.

[Jiro]

Oceania really only had MSN so it's an almost universal rite of passage for ANZ kids. I can just picture my contacts list now, half of them with fucking elaborate ASCII art and fucking song lyrics stretching across the screen. Phenomenal.

[Vasher]

One thing I'll say about people who used Yahoo is that it definitely set itself apart from the others as a "meet singles in your area" type of chat client, where as I feel like a lot of people who used MSN and AIM were teenagers who used them to talk to friends. Not to say that they wouldn't chat up their long distance relationship partners there.

But Yahoo was the DTF client.


Yup. I popped in to say this. Met too many girls through Yahoo. Most were through a friend using my pics. Long/not so long story.

[DMKA]

I was most comfortable using Yahoo Messenger but far more people I talked to regularly used AIM so that's what I used mostly.

I used MSN a fair bit (mainly to talk to fellow EoFFers) but I really didn't like the way the client functioned.

[Cell]

I think I used AIM the most but the notification sound drove me scatty. I had more American friends at the time online so I didn't use MSN half as much.

I liked IRC/Sysreset more than the others.

[escobert]

I used AIM the most for sure. Noit many people in my school used MSN even though it seemed like everyone on here used it.