AIM Integrates With Outlook

It is nice when you see two or three large companies playing nicely to benefit the users. This is the kind of effort I see being put forth when I look at this situation with your AOL buddy lists now being accessible within Microsoft’s Outlook.

Personally I don’t really like having more than one program integrated into one application. Then again, I hate TV and VCR combo sets, as well.

What is AOL doing here, though? Well, the tool will comb through your Outlook address book and match your e-mail addresses with the AIM screen names that it can find to match up. You can also add screen names manually.

Users of America Online Inc.’s instant messaging service can now automatically see from Microsoft Corp.’s popular Outlook e-mail application whether their friends and colleagues are online.

A free tool AOL is offering beginning Monday integrates “buddy list” information from AOL Instant Messenger with Outlook.

When you receive an e-mail from an AIM member who is online, a yellow “running man” logo appears in the “from” line next to the e-mail address. If you believe a quick chat session might be more appropriate in reply than a series of further e-mails back and forth, clicking on the logo launches the AIM software for you.

“The way communications has evolved over the last couple of years… different communications types are appropriate for different contexts,” said Chamath Palihapitiya, AOL’s general manager for instant messaging.

Added Steve Jones, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago, “Some conversations are just easier in real time, and some are a little more difficult in real time.”

He said instant messaging might not make sense when contacting people in different time zones or when needing to do research first to get an answer.

[AOL Integrates Buddy Lists With Outlook, continued]