Although AOL has reportedly laid off much of its AOL Instant Messenger team, the popular chat service isn't in danger of being shut down.

An AOL spokesman told Computerworld that, "We are not killing instant messenger. We'll continue to support it and evolve the product."

The spokesman also confirmed that AIM chief Jason Shellen -- who came to AOL in 2010 after the company bought his company, Thing Labs -- is among the employees leaving AOL.

Despite reports that the AIM group now "only consists of support staff," AOL does seem to be paying some attention to AIM. Today, the company relaunched AIM's connection to rival chat service Google Talk after fixing a spam problem that was affecting Google users.

[gizmodo]