AOL IM Blurrage

Stowe's latest Darwin piece talks about the 4Cs (Communication, Coordination, Collaboration, and Community) and the seemingly inevitable blurring/convergence that is happening as software tools evolve to their more advanced, and potentially useful, social tools status.

In a quick and dirty example of this transgression, AIM's new plans shed some useful light:

"We're making (AOL Instant Messenger) a new front door for communications services," said Ed Fish, senior vice president of AOL's desktop messaging unit. "We think it's becoming the new phone."

[...]

"The idea of being able to escalate an instant-messaging session to an audio conference is new," said Andy Nilssen, an analyst at Wainhouse Research. "We've been waiting for it, and there's good demand for it."

Source: News.com, "AOL unveils premium instant-messaging services"

Blurrage indeed.