What Ever Happened to ICQ?

ICQ, brusque for the phrase "I Seek Y'all," laid the groundwork for standalone instant messaging clients when it arrived in November 1996. Think about how long ago that was...

Microsoft's trailblazing Windows 95 was barely a year old, Nintendo had just introduced the N64, and those with a reason to have a prison cell phone actually used it to talk on.

Launched after less than two months of development from Israeli company Mirabilis, it predated and influenced many of the popular conversation programs of the era including AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger.

Incredibly enough, ICQ has too outlasted its chief competitors. AIM close downwards last December, Yahoo's communications programme bit the bullet in mid-2018 and Microsoft laid its Messenger client to rest in 2022.

ICQ offered a number of innovative features including multi-user chat, async offline messaging, resumable file transfers and a searchable directory. Users were issued a unique User Identification Number, or UIN, upon registration. This number (I somehow withal remember mine by middle some twenty years after), along with custom handles and an attached email address, were used to search for other users on the platform.

Mirabilis enjoyed first-mover advantage, attracting millions of early Internet users enticed by the suggestion of chatting with friends and family in real-time. ICQ's success also captivated potential suitors, prompting AOL to ink a bank check to the tune of $287 one thousand thousand for the entirety of Mirabilis' avails in 1998. Contingency payments that started in financial 2001 reportedly totaled an additional $120 one thousand thousand, pushing the total value of the bargain over $400 one thousand thousand.

America Online would manage to grow ICQ'due south user base tenfold over the side by side iii years, surpassing more than than 100 million registered users past the spring of 2001.

The coming decade would over again reinvent personal communication, driving conversations from mouse and keyboard to mobile devices. AOL must take saw the writing on the wall as information technology offloaded ICQ to Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies (today known as Postal service.ru Group) in 2022 for $187.5 million.

Some may exist surprised to acquire that ICQ is withal around and is being actively developed. The latest stable release in desktop was two months agone, version 10.0.36981, while Android and iOS apps were updated in the last month. Today'south ICQ is a far weep from the basic UI of yesteryear with a modern design and familiar features like secure video calls and stickers. The core functionality – the ability to chat with friends and family unit – remains.

Co-ordinate to Post.ru, the instant messaging platform is used by 11 million people worldwide each month. Sure, it'southward not nearly equally popular every bit it once was merely information technology's still around and that'due south more than most of its early on competitors can say. If you're interested in reconnecting with old contacts or desire to discover information technology for the first time, ICQ is available to download for Windows and Mac equally well as Android and iOS mobile devices.

TechSpot's "What Always Happened to..." Series

The story of software apps and companies that at ane point hit mainstream and were widely used, but are now gone. We cover the near prominent areas of their history, innovations, successes and controversies.