AIM Add-Ons
Welcome to Open AIM! If you intend to develop and distribute an application built using the APIs available from our program, we strongly encourage you to integrate several features listed below.
Integrating some or all these features into your application will help to increase usage of your application and build loyalty from your end users. In short, your users will get more from your application.
Advertising
Display an ad within your Developer Application and get paid via the AIM Money advertising revenue share program. There are several ad sizes to choose from, including:
Click on the desired ad size for more details on implementation. The ad must be displayed whenever either an IM conversation or the Buddy List is visible, without any additional action needed by your user to view the ad.
Want to see an example of how AIM puts advertising into our own clients and webpages? Click here.
Don't forget to sign up for AIM Money today!
Buddy Info
Buddy Info is one of the most popular features on AIM. Buddy Info displays the Buddy Feed, AIM Profile, and status message for a specified AIM user. Buddy Info must be accessible for all visible contacts in a user’s Buddy List with only mouse click. As an example, AIM displays Buddy Info as an orange icon next to a screenname in the Buddy List, and a single click on the icon displays the Buddy Info window.
For details on how to implement Buddy Info in your application, click on one of the following implementation options:
- For details on loading a user's Buddy Info for display, click here.
- For details on implementing Buddy Info in a Web AIM application, click here.
- For details on Buddy Info in the OSCAR protocol, click here.
Want to see an example of how AIM implements Buddy Info in our own client? Click here.
Expressions and Buddy Icons
Expressions are a very popular feature of AIM, and will help drive your users’ engagement with your Developer Application. You’ll simply need to incorporate a link in your Developer Application to allow your users to access the AIM Expressions website in a new browser window. This link must be accessible by your users with only one click (such as via a hyperlink or menu item).
Of course, this wouldn’t be worth much to your users by itself, so we also require that you allow display of Buddy Icons within your Developer Application for your users and the members of their Buddy Lists, either in the Buddy List or IM conversation. This is very simple to incorporate, as the example code below shows. Of course, feel free to add in Wallpaper, Buddy Sounds, and Smileys as well!
- For details on seamless authentication onto the Aim Expressions Chooser, click here.
- For details on implementing the link to the AIM Expressions page, click here.
- For details in the OSCAR protocol on implementing the Buddy Icon display, click here.
Want to see an example of how AIM implements Expressions and Buddy Icons in our own client? Click here.
Toolbar
The AIM Toolbar provides AIM users with one-click access to what they need on the web.
If you decide to implement this option, you must integrate the AIM Toolbar installer with your Developer Application’s installer, and allow the user the option to install the AIM Toolbar when they install your Developer Application.
You can find the AIM Toolbar here.
Once you have downloaded the installer for the OpenAIM Toolbar, you will need to call the installer executable from your installer script. You will also need to add user-visible text to your installer interface that informs the user that the AIM Toolbar will be installed as part of your installation. We recommend installing the AIM Toolbar in "silent" mode: you can do this by using "/S" (no quotes, capital S) on the command-line (for example, "toolbar.exe /S" (no quotes))