AIM Mail Icon

I didn’t realize what this icon was until I enlarged it. It was really bothering me because it was a flashing image on top of my AIM icon in the tray area of the taskbar. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it kept blinking, so I became to determined to figure it out. When you enlarge the picture, it becomes a little more clear that it’s a mailbox with a letter in it.

Indeed, the flashing icon means that I have AIM mail, and I had four emails in my intelliot mailbox. All four were spam. Not a surprise, considering I don’t use the address. But considering the number of AIM users in the world that use the AIM client (quite a lot), what kind of productivity loss does the blinking icon inflict?