Demonstrating why you don't want to rely on corporations to provide Internet communication infrastructure. AOL IM turns out to be less robust than protocols that existed prior to the advent of their Internet IM service in the 1990s. ntalk, IRC-- these things outlasted AOL IM. 

There's a lesson in here somewhere for the users of Skype, Twitter, and Facebook. Get back onto the open and free non-corporate non-proprietary Internet. The only true Internet protocols are by and for the people and free Internet community. Corporations only exist to service themselves.