socialmedian: Ain’t no thang: SocialThing sort of becomes AIM Connect

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Ain’t no thang: SocialThing sort of becomes AIM Connect

Source: VentureBeat

Jul 03, 2009

Summary

This past April, AOL began testing out a social toolbar for web sites, under the name of a lifestreaming service called Socialthing, which it acquired in 2008. The toolbar is now going through a rough transition into something else, although it’s not totally clear what’s happening. At least judging by the live test that AOL has been running on its country music site The Boot. The Socialthing name has been dropped (and some features broken) in favor of a new name: AIM Connect.

The Socialthing toolbar has let people sign in with AIM, ICQ or Bebo identities and chat with friends on that service without leaving the site hosting the toolbar. You could also see a stream of comments and activity from whatever site you were on, as well activities of your friends on other sites from around the web. It let you read and share information with other sites, similar to Meebo’s toolbar and more generally like Facebook’s, Digg’s and others. See my more in-depth look — I actually came away somewhat impressed.