Ever wished you could just chat with someone via Skype, instead of feeling obligated to video chat?  Sick of FaceTime? Tired of texting your friends?  We’ve got the answer for you!

AIM is a service that helps keep you in contact with your friends (SMS is SO 5 years ago.) It’s a mobile chat service (think GChat or Facebook Messenger) that you can access from any desktop computer or mobile device.  While you may think these chat services are a dime a dozen, AIM has a few features that set it apart from the pack:

AIM has actually been around for quite a while.  It’s been an AOL product since 1997- making it one of, if not THE, oldest chat program out there.  Who knew?

You can customize your status.  AIM’s away status feature is quite progressive.  Instead of simply updating your status to “Away,” you can customize your away message to say almost anything.  Some great ideas for away messages include: emo song lyrics, detailed information bordering on oversharing about everything you’re doing while not IMing, or your cell number so people can text you the old fashioned way instead.  These, of course, can be edited to any font and color combination you’d like.  Try Comic Sans if you’re feeling playful, or wingdings if you really want to mess with your friends.

Emoticons. This is what AIM calls emojiis, and they’re really cool.  Instead of having a list of pictures of faces you can choose from to send, you have to build the emoticons yourself out of just the keys on your keyboard.  Here’s my new favorite: 😎

Download AIM here for your desktop or your mobile device- happy IMing, and we’ll ttyl.