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What Ever Happened to MSN Messenger? (www.techspot.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de to c/technology@lemmy.world

121 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The bottom of the article links to the history (individual features) of other IM programs from that era as well like ICQ and Yahoo Messenger.

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[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 47 points 3 weeks ago (18 children)

Anyone remember the short-lived Great War of the Messenger Apps? For a few months back around... '98? '99? MSN tried really hard to shoehorn its way into working with AIM. About every day there would be an update from MSM Messenger to allow it to work with AIM. Then AOL would fuck with their own protocol to ice out MSN users again.

I think these shenanigans also impacted the Trillium Messenger app too, which up until then had been flying under the radar of messenger interoperability.

I might be getting some of these details wrong.

[–] ShunkW@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I used that until they pay walled it. Then I found Pidgen I believe it was called. It was open source and could connect to pretty much every messenger and IRC and stuff. Then my friend just switched to texting lol

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 13 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Pidgin. Before that it was called Gaim.
It still works, as there are plugins to integrate it with almost everything.

[–] vext01@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 weeks ago

Gaim was the way I used MSN from Linux back in the day.

I miss that era.

[–] ShunkW@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I knew it wasn't spelled exactly like the bird lol. But yeah I used that shit for years. I don't really have a use for it anymore or I'd probably still be using it

[–] WildPalmTree@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

"A pidgin /ˈpɪdʒɪn/, or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from several languages."

[–] ShunkW@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh that's cool. I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing!

[–] WildPalmTree@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

Always thought it was a great name choice.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

I used it all the way up until Google broke compatibility with it, then continued using it with a third party plug-in until that stopped being maintained.

Now I prefer Signal over Chat.

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