Looks like AOL is working on a non-crappy version of AIM. How exciting. Less obtrusive ads, tabbed chats, sexy interface. Slightly confusing - but hey, it’s new and less sucky. I used it for a bit before school this morning and I was impressed with what I saw. I’ve been dreading what the next incarnation of AIM would look like for a while now because each subsequent release gets more ugly and more bloated. It’s nice to see them taking a different route.
If you take the tour it says something along the lines of “We don’t target your ads based on what you e-mail. That would be creepy.” I love google but I thought that was a pretty funny jab they took at them. 
Check it out guys it looks somewhat promising. There’s even new ugly smilies to replace my beloved little pixely dude(tte)s. Good for most of you, bad for me 
Link!
http://www.aim.com/get_aim/win/win_beta.adp?aolp=
(Beta - WinXP only)