A Brand New AIM Chat

Thanks for checking out the brand new AIM Chat! We're still in beta, which means that *almost* everything is shipshape, but you may still encounter occasional weirdness as we work out a few remaining bugs.

We're very excited to share this chat experience with you, and want to take a minute to highlight some of what's new in this version.

Themes
For a start, we've provided nine different color schemes you can use to customize your experience. Not feeling the cool gray and blue of our default "Morning Calm" theme? Switch it up to "Mojito Hacker" for a high contrast feel, or warm up some "Afternoon Chai".
Just look for the theme selector in the upper right corner of your screen. It looks like this:


New Chat Interface

The new chat interface brings your online friends to life by putting their pictures and profile information at your fingertips. We've also added "talk bubbles" to make it easier to keep track of the chat conversation.

Hover over a screen name along the left side of the page to expose the available actions:

• IM - send a private message to this person.
• Profile - click the person's picture or screenname to open up his or her profile in a new window.
• Ignore - tune out the troublemakers! Ignored users appear grayed out in the list. Roll over them again and click 'unignore' to bring them back into view.
  
• Report - please help maintain a safe and pleasant community for all chatters by reporting conduct that violates the Terms of Service

Media Sharing
The media player lets you share videos, pictures, or any other links with the rest of the chat. As links are shared, we queue them up in the playlist area below the player. You'll get up to 10 of the most recent shared items when you join a chat. As new items are shared while you chat, you'll see them appear in the playlist. Click on an item to bring it into the player. If it is a recognized video (e.g. a YouTube video), it will play right there in the chat. If we don't recognize it, we will display the URL in the player. Any links in the player will open in a new window (or tab) so you can check them out and still remain in the chat.

If there is an item in the playlist you don't want to see, just select it and click the 'Remove' button. This will remove the item from your view. If you think the material violates our Terms of Service, click the 'Report' button to notify us.

We hope you enjoy the new AIM Chat experience. Be sure to send us your feedback (using the red 'feedback' tabs throughout) and let us know how we're doing - what you like, what you don't like, and what you think we're missing. We can't reply to every feedback item individually, but keep an eye on the blog for updates and product information.

Thank you, and happy chatting!