Ready, AIM, Fight! Or It’s Not Who You Know…

With apologies to John “Bluto” Blutarsky, “AIM Fight!”

What the heck is “AIM Fight?” Aunty can already hear her readers scratching their collective heads.

Well, you know all of those 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon friend-of-a-friend sites that have become so popular (or reviled, depending on where you stand) over the years? Like Linked-In, Grokster, and Friendster? (Need I go on?)

Well, it turns out that the best metric of your linked-in-ness, your popularity, your cool, is none of those artificially created networks, but the one that has been right under our noses for the past several years: the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) network.

The concept behind AIM Fight, which was created by, according to AOL’s AIM Fight site, “two AIM programmers with a little bit too much free time on their hands,” is simple: the more people who list you in their buddy list, the higher your…

[Continue Reading Ready, AIM, Fight! Or It's Not Who You Know, It's Who Has You In Their Buddy List]