This Just In: AIM Pages Beta is Live!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Flat Scalzi programming to bring you breaking news:

AIM Pages Beta Is Now Live!

I've held off about talking about AIM Pages until now, though there have been plenty of rumblings in the press these past few weeks -- some of it accurate, some not so much.

So what are AIM Pages?

Here's the "what is this?" section of the AIM Pages Web site; I would call it a new way to publish and share profiles. But that doesn't begin do it justice.

It's easier to show than to say: For example, here's the AIM Pages profile I started making for JournalsEditor:

My profile is still kind of lame, but I'm still working on it.

For starters, you'll notice that there are a whole bunch of available themes that you can tweak and adjust. That's pretty cool, and you don't have to know a lick of CSS or HTML.

It starts getting cooler because it works off the "original" online social network -- your Buddy List -- you can see my Buddy Gallery, which is populated from selected groups from my Buddy List (that's where the social profile stuff comes in).

It keeps getting cooler because the publishing interface is really slick. It's mostly drag-and-drop -- when you're in Editing mode, you can move modules around on the page with your mouse; also, the themes gallery shows you your changes on the fly, and you can further tweak those as you like:

The AIM Page profile edit view. The circled bit is the themes browser.

Probably the coolest feature is that it's built with openness in mind; outside developers can build modules so you can plug in different features to your profile -- there's already an AIM Fight module, polls module, Flickr photo module, and a whole bunch more.

You won't be limited to what a single development team can churn out -- you'll be able to pick from an entire universe of developers doing cool stuff.

The easiest way to see what the heck I'm talking about is to build your own profile and start playing around. When you first create your AIM Pages profile, it will pull in info from your existing Member Profile (if you have one).

Then, you can add modules, like the AOL Pictures module I have, as well as a feeds module for my blog (so it automatically displays the titles of my latest blog entries -- you can display any feed you like, not just your blog's).

So, you're probably asking, "When do we get all this in Journals?"

The AIM Pages team started out with Profiles because Profiles are easier than blogs for a variety of reasons. There's already a few "About Me" modules, a Pictures display module, links modules, and a Feeds module. A comments module is coming. All you you need is Rich Text module that publishes new stuff on the top, and what's that give you? A blog.

So, the question is, do we work towards making an AIM Pages profile template that acts like a Journal, or a Journal that pulls in the features from AIM Pages and Publisher?

I don't know the answer to this, and the Product guys are still working on it -- I suspect that it doesn't really matter (as long as we can make any transitions smooth), so whichever one gets us cooler stuff faster.

We'll keep you updated on any changes -- in the meantime, try playing around with a profile, see the profiles of people who've created them (lots of AOL employees at the moment), leave feedback on the AIM Pages Message Boards, go see the demo movie on the I Am Alpha developer's site, and more.

If you make your own profile, feel free to leave a comment with a link to it so we can see it and marvel at another venue for your creativity.

[Incidentally, "Beta" means that the product is stable enough to test, but you might encounter bugs, quirks and problems (which you should report, via the feedback boards). The developers have been working like crazy, and they'll be fixing things as well as adding new features on the fly. Just a heads-up.]

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: AIM Pages, AOL Journals