After nine years and three months, today is my last day at AOL. It's been a wild ride, lots of fun, and a tremendous learning experience. Besides working with such great folks, where else could one have the opportunity to run such a large community operation and get to know some of the most interesting, savvy, and committed community members in the world? I will miss you, more than you know.

But... other opportunities, both personal and professional have been calling and the time is right for me to move on.

My AOL e-mail box will not work after today, so if you want to stay in touch, feel free to write to NYMeng@aol.com. You can also keep track of my daily activities by reading Hummingbird Mind.

Before you ask what I'll do with myself, I have some plans. Here's just a short list:

* Sleep
* Exercise
* Read
* Play with my new granddaughter
* Fish with my father
* Walk the beach
* Focus on the youth oriented non profit I started last year with some other parents
* Take many road trips
* Complete a book I've been writing

That's just a start. I plan to take off at least a month before starting some consulting work I've been offered.

I'll also still visit AOL communities, so if you see me online, feel free to ping me.

It's not goodbye, it's so long and see you soon.

-Nancie

P.S. Be good!

To Our Loyal AIM Users:

Since our goal is to give you the best experience possible, AIM Dashboard will be on a short vacation for construction so we can bring you some great new changes. Don't fret, though -- AIM Today is back, giving you the same up-to-date news, buddy info and fresh content that we love bringing to you. We'll be back before you know it.

Thanks for bearing with us!
The AIM Team

Greetings AIMkins,

I know Halloween is coming up, and I can assure you that it is really not a scary thing to download the new AIM 6.5 product. For those of you who might be on an older version, we have created a demo to walk you through our experience step-by-step.

So check out this AIM screencast for the latest on the new features and functionality.

It's not a trick, but a guaranteed treat!

Hey folks,

Very soon many of you will be seeing a mandatory upgrade notice from AIM. If you are on version AIM 6.1 or below or old versions of AIM Triton, you will see this message. This service update will bring you up to version AIM 6.5 which contains important security updates along with several new features.

The message will come from screen name AOL System Msg, and will say:

AOL System Msg: Hey there! Thanks for signing on. AIM service will apply a mandatory security update. Start the update process now.

You do not need to enter your screen name or password. The link will take you directly to http://www.aim.com/upgrade/ and is totally free. In case you want to double check, here is what the site will look like, much more scaled down of course:

Users on AIM 6.1 or 6.2 will receive a toaster pop-up (meaning it appears in the right corner, like toast popping out of the toaster) in the corner prompting them to install the update. It looks like this:

Alternatively, you can close the IM and download AIM 6.5 directly from AIM.com. Be advised that if you don't update your version of AIM, you may be blocked from accessing the version of AIM service you are using in the future (and we don't want that).

If you have questions on upgrading or want to share tips with other users, come visit the AIM Help & Support Message Board.

Calling all "Artsy Fartsy" people, and even those of you who don't fall into this category.

AIM is reaching out to all users out there and opening up the design of its icons to the general public through a contest. The contest is being hosted by Top Coder Studio and will run from October 9th through November 6th, 2007.

The contest includes designing 24 icons, in 4 different sizes. The winner will not only get a nice cash prize, but also see the icons included in a future release of AIM and used throughout the AIM Network.

More information is available on the AIM Product Design blog.

If you are feeling a bit creative, jump in and join the competition. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me.

Good Luck!!!!!!

Just when you thought we couldn't possibly give you any more awesome Wallmation games than we already have, here I am to prove you wrong! (In case you missed it, here's the introduction to Wallmations for a little background information on what they are.)


The object here in Boat Fishing is (I bet you can't guess!) to catch some fish. Just because I like you, I will give you a little hint: try to get the hook near the fish's nose as it's going down. And don't make fun of me for only catching one fish in 91 seconds. It's not polite.


Now, if you thought I was bad at fishing, just wait until you see me try Juggling. See that pink ball? That's seconds before impact. I'm sure you can do much better.

Come visit us over at Expressions to check out the latest and greatest!

~Lorelei :)

We've been getting a ton of comments on two entries recently, because of two high-traffic links. One is Carol's entry on the upcoming AIM Dashboard page, featured on the top of AIM Today:


The other is Jen's entry on the AIM/Bebo announcement -- it's in a Bebo <backstage> blog entry featured on the Bebo main page:


Both of these entries are getting lots of comments, and even more comment notifications. (We get e-mail from the tool every time someone posts a comment -- even if the person never verifies it and it doesn't go live. I'm afraid it's going to burn out Jen's poor Blackberry.)

Nothing wrong with comments, right? We love comments. We complain when we don't get enough comments, and we do silly things to try to get more (I still need to do a post-mortem on 10/4 Day, which again went nowhere because I was a big slacker.)

However, here we have a completely different set of problems -- what to do when you get too many comments. Especially off-topic, nasty or spam comments.

Now, the gap between what blog owners hope for (well-reasoned, insightful, comprehensible comments) and what blog commenters actually do is usually pretty wide. Like I say, high-traffic blogs attract TIPS: trolls, idiots, psychos and spammers.

However, in this case, especially since the AIM and Bebo crowds are pretty young, we're getting a lot of "yo, wazzup" comments. Nothing malicious; just not a lot we can reply to. Mostly people who want to say hi and meet other people. (From all over the world: I've seen lots of comments from the UK, Ireland, India, Australia -- as well as many others.)

It's just that the blog comments here is probably not the right place for this kind of socializing. So, unfortunately, I've been kind of a goon, deleting a lot of off-topic comments.

However, it's really, really important to find ways to get people who want to meet other people talking to each other. I think we can do this with AIM Chat (Web chats powered by Userplane) -- it's in testing right now, and it should be a way to get people chatting with each other (where they don't have to worry about a stiff like me deleting their comments).

We'll talk more about AIM Chat soon.

Do you think I'm being a jerk when it comes to deleting comments? Leave me one, tell me what you think.

Thanks -- Joe

Look what arrived just in time for Halloween! We have a brand new interactive game called Pumpkins that is now available for your ghoulish pleasure. Match three same-colored pumpkins to clear them -- but do it quick 'cause if they touch the edge of the screen you lose the game and have to start over!


As you can see from the screen shot above, I need a lot of practice to get beyond the first level. Let me get back to working on that... Let's see how well you do!

~Lorelei :)

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to give you more info on a new feature, AIM Tunes, that is available now with AIM 6.5 (you can download AIM 6.5 here).

Honestly, if you are a music lover like I am, you will never stop using this to stream music to and from your buddies. For more information about this sweet plug-in, check out this earlier entry: Listen to Your Buddy's Tunes for Free.

Better yet, we've got a video screencast that shows you how to use AIM Tunes, step by step. See the video (it's just over two minutes) after the jump.