AOL Pushes Its AIM

The instant messaging pioneer America Online hopes to get bloggers, pod casters, and small businesses to embed its presence into their offerings.

AOL CEO Jon Miller announced the move at the Web 2.0 event in San Francisco.

Early takers include Facebook, LinkedIn, Six Apart, Glam.com, according to AOL.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking offering. FaceBook concentrates on academic relationships. Six Apart produces blogging software. The Glam.com site offers fashion and beauty tips with embedded e-commerce.

This deal pertains to AOL Instant Messaging (AIM). AOL also fields ICQ instant messaging.

Business use of IM, which took root in the consumer market, has exploded. Researcher IDC recently said it expects the enterprise instant messaging market, including IM server, security, compliance and management products, is forecast to grow from $315 million to $736 million in 2009.

AOL, which blazed the traill in IM and buddy lists, faces heightened competition as Microsoft seeks partners to embed its business-oriented IM in their applications.