Last month, Business 2.0′s B2Day blog discussed AOL’s discreet plans to build a social network on the back of its near-ubiquitous instant messenger service (“codename: AIMSpace”). The buzz started going again a couple of days ago when Dave Winer posted that it would go live within two weeks, and challenge MySpace “head on.” Somewhere along the way it picked up the sobriquet “MySpace killer” (think wishfully much?), and now the talk is really catching fire.
What else do we know right now? Not a whole lot. A couple of AOL employees confirmed the project’s existence by leaving comments on blogs. Armughan Javaid (AOL program manager) wrote on download squad that “it will be open for non-members” and also that “it will be kick-ass!”
Not everyone shares this assessment of the potential ass-kickitude of the as-yet-unseen service. Internet news’ write-up includes decidedly less-than-rosy comments from Forrester Research Analyst Chris Charron, who said, “I think it’s too late for anybody to create a MySpace killer site,” adding that he thinks the ship sailed on AOL’s ability to create a ‘dominant’ AIM-based social site “two years ago.” Still, it might be better late than never. AOL’s plan to concentrate on their AIM clientele, which tends to skew younger than their general membership, is as good a place to start as any for a site trying to knock off a MySpace, fueled as it is by college and high school kids.
