RIP ICQ!

Though the parent company is VK?! When did Russia buy ICQ... or was it always Russian?

It wasn't apparently. It was an Israeli startup initially. Then AOL took over. Then VK. Or rather: AOL sold ICQ to Russia's Digital Sky Technologies, who now owns what would become VK, in 2010.

I might've used ICQ back in the day. I might have. Not sure. Never was a big proponent of IM type stuff. But I've always loved the acronym, and so it is a bit sad to see it go.

RIP, the longest living IM client in HISTORY.

I think? At least one of.

ICU...

posted by Cyber on Sunday, June 23rd, 2024 (10:50 AM) in Tech.
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► S3C
Sunday Jun/23/2024

I at first confused with this with IRC and thought WTF...IRC has been around longer than ICQ btw

On old BBS systems (late 90s -> mid 2000s) there were four instant messaging fields that you could fill, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Microsoft Network Messenger (MSN), Yahoo! Instant Messenger (YIM) and I Seek You (ICQ- had to look up that acronym). AIM and MSN where the main ones, YIM was less popular and I remember virtually no one used ICQ.

Instant Messengers as we knew them pretty much died in 2010 with the integration of instant messaging in Social Media platforms, unlimited text messaging becoming ubiquitous in mobile plans, and the more targeted services like Discord, Skype, Microsoft Teams,

I was a huge user of MSN in the 2000s. I have entered the NG chat a few times, and now I'm uncomfortable/overwhelmed at the premise of interacting with strangers instantly.

What a trip down Nostalgia Lane...
► Cyber
Monday Jun/24/2024

Right, maybe IRC is the longest-standing one at this point...

I remember those four fields from NG too. I know YIM at least came a bit later than the rest... MSN actually came after YIM though! In the timeline of things apparently IRC started in 1988, ICQ 1996, AIM 1997, YIM 1998, MSN 1999, the heyday of IM times... my sister did use ICQ, before I really got into the Internet myself, I maybe only know about it because of her.

YIM definitely didn't get a big following compared to the others, but it's cool to know they were actually pioneers too... Yahoo were pretty ahead of the game early on, with things like Geocities and Yahoopa, wish they'd been able to keep up with Microsoft better, the Internet might be pretty different now.

Very true. Seems the communication category branched out and found niches with game or work-related communication in particular too, and social media and mobile-based IM methods took over for private conversation, I guess BlackBerry's own unlimited messaging system might've been a part of it all too for a time... traditional chat rooms seem rarer now, though maybe I'm just not on the right places, there still seem to be plenty of IRC channels out there, never really got into those.

For a while we had a phase of online IM clients too, with a few revolutionary services like https://www.pidgin.im/ that combined multiple of 'em, everything via the same interface. They have a good overview on what's available now, both the old and new, even replacement plugins for good 'ol YIM, MSN, ICQ etc...

Yeah man, same. :) I think I always was though... or was I? I was definitely more self-conscious back in the day, though combine that with the paradox of not considering consequences as much... I guess it probably was way easier to get into random chats regardless.

Mhm, when old things disappear we mourn and remember...