AOL opens doors to AIM developer program, includes Mac OS X and Linux tools
Macworld is reporting that AOL (our parent company, by the way) has announced AIM developer tool support for Mac OS X and Linux, opening the doors for more interoperability to come from an even larger playing field. AOL launched this 'web 2.0-esque' Open AIM program last March, allowing 3rd party developers to create add-ons and tie-ins to the AIM network, with a healthy dose of around 45,000 developers already hopping on board.
It'll be interesting to see how much comes out of this for the Mac OS X platform, as I'm willing to bet most Mac users who chat on AIM use iChat, and I'm not sure how open that app is from Apple's standpoint. This is pure speculation, but I'm wondering if we could see some kind of a plugin push from Apple with iChat in Leopard. Especially since, as Macworld points out, the whole VoIP thing has everyone with an audio chat app firing on all cylinders, vying for market share.
