Recognizing that AIM is one of the company’s flagship producers of traffic to other AOL products and services, AOL decided to boost its instant messaging service in anticipation of the growing use of voice, video and desktop-to-mobile messaging.
AOL spokesperson Krista Thomas said Triton will work in concert with AIM Today, a website that will be updated with content geared at younger consumers. A major push behind Triton’s launch is to increase advertising exposure online, and for AOL to stand its ground against close competitors Yahoo, Google and Microsoft’s MSN.
Triton also will act as a major advertising vehicle for AOL in addition to providing two marketing bots, MovieFone and ShoppingBuddy, for those users who upgrade.
Designed for mobile users, the Triton interface features all active communications in one window with a grid listing buddy names, enabling users to switch between conversations or between chat and video. Additionally, the service offers a Quicknote feature that provides a snapshot of contact information for each buddy on the list.
AOL has integrated AOL Search into Triton as well, allowing users to highlight a word or phrase in a conversation and click on Go to conduct a search. AIM Triton includes automatic logging to preserve a record of IM sessions until users sign off.
Triton’s buddy list can store up to 500 names and Plaxo can hold upwards of 5,000 addresses and also can print mailing labels.
AOL has included a filtering system called IM Catcher for messages from unknown senders.
Triton is available for free download and works with Windows XP and Windows 2000.