AOL to Open Chat Client

As per the request of the Federal Trade Commission, currently working on the AOL-Time Warner merger, America Online will soon be opening the protocol to its popular chat program AOL Instant Messenger, which currently boasts over 50 million members, to create an open standard to interoperate with other clients. The instant messaging "war" has sparked recently due to the industry's request for a universal protocol to connect them all together. AOL was of course, reluctant to move in that direction.

The decision to create an open standard is surprising as just this week a rival program entitled Odigo debuted its latest version with connectivity to AOL and ICQ. In a not-so-surprising move, AOL blocked that access like it had in the past to Odigo, Microsoft, and Yahoo chat programs.

This latest move from AOL could quite possibly be to appease the system it is currently in discussions with to merge the largest ISP with the largest content provider. If the deal goes through, AOL-Time Warner will have both the means of delivery and the resources to be "everywhere." The debate is that the merger would make the company a monopoly. No one knows what the FTC is thinking, and only time will reveal the fate of the deal.