Featured Video
api-video/find_all_videos.asp&fields=id,videoStillURL,thumbnailURL,guid,video320kMP4Url,name,duration&count=4&doctype=128
AIM 
40 posts and columns on AIM
Exclusive: Amid Layoffs in AOL’s AIM and Mail Ranks, Top Execs Shellen and Van Miltenburg to Also Depart
Another day, another, well, you know …
Mac vs. Windows
Walt answers a reader’s question on the pros and cons of a Mac for a small-business owner.
News Byte
In AOL's Shopping Spree, One More Thing: Thing Labs
AOL had best take a breather before its checkbook overheats and seizes up. On top of today’s confirmation of the acquisitions of the TechCrunch blog empire and video distribution start-up 5Min Media, AOL announced it had purchased Thing Labs, maker of the Brizzly family of Web-based social software. The Thing Labs team, headed by Google and Blogger vet Jason Shellen, will continue to oversee Brizzly and the integration of some of its features into AIM and AOL Lifestream. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.Let's Go to the Videotape: SB Nation's Jim Bankoff Speaks!
While in Washington, D.C., recently, I paid a visit to Jim Bankoff, who is now helming a fascinating start-up called SB Nation, a fast-growing sports blog and news platform. With over 200 individual communities, it’s a mix of professional and user-generated content aimed at engaging passionate fans.
With Video Chatting, It’s a Small World After All
Video chatting, helpful as it may be for keeping in touch, can be intimidating. Katie goes into the basics.
The Bids Are In for AOL's Sale of ICQ–It's Down to a "U.N." of Four Buyers
AOL has taken another step closer to selling off its ICQ instant messaging service, culling seven bids to four “serious” ones, said sources close to the situation. The price for the service is hovering just under $200 million, several sources said, with one bid 15 to 20 percent higher. Sources said that the solicitation of bids is now over, with the four remaining described by one source as a “U.N. of buyers.”
Tim Armstrong Makes One Last Pitch for AOL: “No More Hail Marys”
AOL is about to cut ties to Time Warner, and CEO Tim Armstrong has been making his case to current and potential investors. Here’s one last pitch, delivered to the crowd at the annual UBS Media and Communications Conference in New York.
Exclusive: AOL Hires Bankers to Sell Off ICQ, as Internet Service Starts to Shed Non-Core Assets
AOL has hired a pair of New York investment bankers, Morgan Stanley and Allen & Co., to manage the sale of its ICQ instant-messaging unit. Sources familiar with the situation said interest in buying the asset from two major non-U.S. companies prompted execs at the online service to put a process in place for a deal that will likely occur after AOL becomes an independent company in December. AOL bought ICQ in 1998 for about $400 million–$287 million outright and $125 million in earnouts for the team. Sources said AOL to looking to recoup $300 million.
Palm Pixi Needs a Dusting of Speed
Palm offers the Pre’s webOS operating system in a tinier package: the Pixi.
Sticky Situation of the Month: Ex-Yahoo Communications Head (and "Peanut Butter Manifesto" Scribe) Garlinghouse to Helm Similar Unit at AOL
Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse–famous for his controversial “Peanut Butter Manifesto,” which correctly chided the Internet giant for becoming so lugubrious several years ago–is taking a job at AOL very similar to the one he left at Yahoo last year. Garlinghouse, who will remain on the West Coast, will be named president of Internet and mobile communications at AOL, putting him in charge of the New York-based Time Warner online unit’s powerful email and instant-messaging properties, including ICQ and AIM. He will also be, said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, its “CEO of Silicon Valley for us.”