VOIP
Death of the AIM Phoneline
by Philip on Nov.20, 2008, under AOL, Business, Technology, VOIP, recession
End of another freebie
Somehow I knew this was inevitable. A feature on AIM that I’ve used for a while now is its free AIM Phoneline feature. It assigns you a free DID which enables the AIM client as a softphone. It is convenient to give out to spammers and such, and an occasional long call.
I just got an email earlier this morning from AOL that they are shutting down the service next year. While unfortunate, I understand their plight as their conversion rate of users to their paid version is probably miniscule at best.
If Skype is having problems with profitability, I can’t see how AIM was going to turn this into a cash positive proposition.
Good thing I never even thought about relying on it for professional purposes. Sad really, because I think it’s long overdue for AOL to something right again. Too bad it’s not this one.
Here is the email they sent out:
We’re writing to inform you that the Free AIM Phoneline service will be closing on January 13, 2009. Your phone number will be disabled, and unfortunately it will not be transferrable to another service.
It’s never an easy decision to shut down a feature, especially one like Free AIM Phoneline that some of our members have used for a long time. But we have to look carefully at all of our features to ensure we’re providing as much value to members as possible.
Please be sure to download to your PC any voicemail messages you want keep, and inform your friends and family that this number will no longer be available as of January 13, 2009.
For more information see our Frequently Asked Questions. We hope this does not cause an inconvenience, and we thank you for being a Free AIM Phoneline customer.
Sincerely,
The AIM Phoneline Team
