TechCrunch has an exclusive screenshot of AIM Pages, a social networking site being built quietly by AOL to rival MySpace in size, complexity, and features. So far, the screenshot looks pretty neat, and the Aim Pages pages will be easy to find, with URLs like http://aim.com/[username] for those AIM users who choose to sign up for the service. And since the service will likely be tied in with the AOL Instant Messaging service, time will tell if the service will rival MySpace, come to overtake it in popularity, or fizzle and fade out like many of AOL’s recent projects.
That being said, the screenshot over at TechCrunch shows a very clean, attractive, and orderly page, unlike the unholy morass of animated gifs, mis-sized graphics, and annoying blinky things that seem to come with your starter page at MySpace or Xanga, and do everything to further the mindset that services like MySpace and Xanga are the seedy, ugly, scummy underbelly of the Internet. AIM Pages looks decidedly clean and organized, and one can only hope that AOL will offer a balance of customizability and cleanliness that will allow people to come and express themselves without devolving into the eye-blasting pain of the previously mentioned services.
At the same time, AOL loves to try and make itself the home base of people trying to get around the web, and this might not be the best idea for that-we all saw how much people hated the AIM Today page that used to launch when you opened AOL Instant Messenger, but at least this time instead of reinventing the wheel they’re allowing you to link in your other web services to AIM Pages; so instead of creating a place to upload pictures, you can link in your favorite flickr photostream into the sidebar, for example. However, with MySpace with over 75 million users and lots of ad revenue, AOL will have to not just figure out a way to build a service that’s easy, accessable, and customizable, as well as one that generates revenue for AOL. We’ll see!