Google goes Facebook, AIM goes Twitter

[cos]

AIM has added a new "lifestream" that publicizes your status changes, twitter-style, and is public by default. Apparently, according to antimony, they also make it visible to other people when you "friend" them, which I think means add to your buddy list. If you want to make your "lifestream" not public, go to http://lifestream.aim.com/settings and log in and change your settings. I don't know if there's a way to restore the former ability to add people to your buddy list privately.

Comments

[nimocynth.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the privacy heads-up!

[hawver.livejournal.com]

Anyone using the standard AIM client needs to get their head examined.

[cos]

Lifestream does not require that someone use the standard client.

[ron_newman]

iUse iChat, but what's so bad about the standard client?

[hawver.livejournal.com]

It's a complete piece of crap. Ads, they install "weather bug" and other crapola by default, no multi protocol support, and it says "AOL" on it. I rest my case.

[antimony.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I use Adium -- this is logging on AIM's side, not on the client.

[sauergeek.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll signal boost once I have real Internet access again.

[kirin]

Hmm. When I go to that URL all I get is a "What is Lifestream?" graphics, a broken help panel, and a "Get a Screen Name" button. Do you have to already be logged in elsewhere for it to work? There's no login option on the page itself.

[cos]

I see a sign in box prominently on the right side.

[kirin]

Ok, wacky. The frame that was supposed to be the login panel was getting an error and redirecting to some AOL home page. I managed to do a partial page load, get info on the frame, find the referring URL, paste that into a new tab, log in there, and then get back to the settings page. Dunno. There was a "badbrowser" in one of the redirected URLs so it seems like maybe it didn't like my browser, then hit a 404 on the browser info page it tried to go to or something. Weird. I'm running Firefox 3.0.18 here.

[nurrynur.livejournal.com]

Argh! Thanks, I've changed my settings.

[seventorches.livejournal.com]

I never use staus updates and as far as I know, AIM isn't hooked up to any of my other social networking tools (I have FB, LJ, Flickr, Twitter). I don't otherwise have an AOL account. Does that matter? Can I just leave it alone if I don't already have these things loaded up?

[antimony.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the signal boost -- it may not bother some people, but I know a bunch of people who were really, really upset over it. (I was somewhere in between.)

[keshwyn]

Interesting. I was already private.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Huh! I was not when I checked after 10 PM (having never seen this "service" previously), and now I'm really curious what quirk of the system caused you to be private while I was still all public.

[cos]

Mine was set to public. You're the first person I've seen say you were already private. Hmm.

[keshwyn]

Possibly I had already set everything and everything to private some time ago, and they extrapolated? But I don't know...

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the heads up - I'm sick of these services announcing my online social behavior to the whole world (and very directly to anyone I've ever talked to) without so much as a by-your-leave.

[lordling.livejournal.com]

Oh man, thank you tons for the heads up.