Now get instant messaging on your PlayStation Portable with AIMonPSP

AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is one of the most popular real-time text chat programs. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can download AIM for free and use it to chat with their friends over the AIM network. And even if you don’t have AIM installed on your computer, you can still use it through a service called “AIM Express” available on their website that allows you to send instant messages without having to download and install any software.

That is good for when you are sitting in front of a computer. But that is not always possible. You can be away from home or office and away from a computer, say, for example, on the beach or on a bus. But let’s say you want to get in touch with a friend online in some way. Maybe you’re shopping at the mall and you see an item you want to ask your friend about. Can you talk to your friend online without dropping everything and looking for a computer? Well, if you have a Sony PSP, you can. A new service now allows you to use AOL instant messaging on a Sony PSP. Appropriately, this service is called AIMonPSP.

Don’t worry about having to download and install anything on your PSP. The AIMonPSP service runs as a web client, which means that you only need to access it with the PSP web browser to use it. Simply point your PSP browser to aimonpsp.com and log in with your AIM username and password. Then you can exchange messages with your AIM friends even when you are away from your computer.

That might not seem like a big deal if you think you can text someone on their mobile phone or just call that person. But an AIM is a completely different form of communication. It is a client for network communication via the World Wide Web. What that means is that your AIM friends list can be made up of people anywhere, including people you’ve never met or whose real names you don’t know. In other words, AIM gives you access to a different social network than what you can access through a normal mobile phone (of course, some mobile phones have the ability to surf the net). So it’s actually great to be able to use AIM on the bus or on the street with your PSP.