Facebook, AOL link instant messaging

From CNET News.com: Facebook's and AOL's instant-messaging systems now can link together. It's a step forward--but one that also shows how backward Net communications are today.

"AIM has teamed up with Facebook, and now you can chat with your Facebook friends--right from AIM!" gushes the AIM beta download site. "After you sign into AIM, click the 'Facebook Connect' button at the top of your buddy list to set up Facebook chat. When you are done your Facebook friends will be added to your buddy list. You can now chat with your friends who are using the Facebook site!"

Maybe I should be happier about this than I am. I can't begrudge Facebook's effort to enrich its members communications' options through its 2008 launch of instant messaging, but I also can't help feeling this is a case of a new-era Internet company making the same missteps as its dot-com 1.0 predecessors.

Specifically, I hate how, unlike e-mail, instant messaging consists of separate islands of non-interoperable services. The fact that Facebook and AOL had to hammer out a partnership and that AIM had to release new software to take advantage of it reveals just how unpleasant the prevailing system is for users.

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