

The idea behind most modern social media platforms came directly from ICQ: the ability for individuals to build their own ‘network’ of friends for single and group communication. As a result, by the time AOL sold ICQ in 2010, the number of registered user accounts had more than halved. All of these became very popular platforms, and diluted the market.
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ICQ gave rise to AOL’s AIM – AOL Instant Manager – plus other similar platforms such as Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger. However, AOL sold the platform in in 2010, but by then its influence on modern social media platforms could be seen very clearly. We should add that ICQ still exists, and is used by many people for communications. After the acquisition, AOL patented the technology behind ICQ in 2002. And that’s just a few years after messenger technology had been written off as a gimmick by many commentators.
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That they paid $287million for it in 1998, plus a further series of payments reportedly totaling $120 million, shows just how important this technology was to AOL. The purpose being of course to gain ownership of ICQ and access to all those users. It was seen as a gimmick initially, yet by the year 2001 – that’s just five years after ICQ was launched – user accounts numbered over 100million!īy this time, the US internet service provider AOL – who doesn’t remember getting the CDs in the mail? - had purchased Mirabilis in its entirety. Many tech companies – and users – thought it would not take off. In the early years, text messaging was seen as something of a novelty. It’s arguable, then, that ICQ actually changed the way we communicate. This, once again, is a standard feature of current platforms like Facebook Messenger. You could use these handles to search for other users on the network. Furthermore, each user was given a User Identification Number – UIN – and by way of this, a unique ‘handle’ or name. Users could also chat with more than one person at a time! Group chat is a standard feature of messenger platforms these days, but it was new when ICQ launched, plus messages were retained, and users could recall them to read again. The fact that the service was fully centralized added to its appeal. This was the ground-breaking development that technology companies had not yet latched onto, except for Mirabilis. It gave users a unique identity, plus ICQ allowed private 1 to 1 messages.
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ICQ was free to download when first released. Whichever messaging platform you use today, you can guarantee that it uses at least some ideas that were first brought to the market by ICQ. What did it offer the user that they didn’t have before? Keep reading to find out. It’s easy to see, then, why ICQ was such a massive hit in the mid-’90s, as it really did point to the future of mobile communication and social media. Almost unbelievably, the iPhone did not make an appearance until 2007! Emoji’s – ubiquitous today – had yet to be invented, the smash-hit Nokia 3310 – fondly remembered by many as their first mobile phone – didn’t arrive until the year 2000. In 1995, there were just 10 million mobile phone users worldwide (this would rocket to 100 million by 1998). First, bear in mind that the very first SMS – Short Message Service – text was sent in 1992, by a developer working for Vodaphone. To put things into perspective it’s worth considering the state of mobile communications in 1996 when ICQ was launched. In these respects, ICQ was genuinely ground-breaking, and fast became extremely popular. Where ICQ differed from other IM solutions of the time is that it was the first to truly focus on people wanting one to one conversations, and to use the individual user account format we are so familiar today.

The name is a clever take on the phrase ‘I Seek You’, and the platform was developed by an Israeli company, Mirabilis, in 1996. While not the very first instant messenger (IM) service, there is no argument that it was ICQ that set the standards, and that yielded influence that is still seen in today’s IM services. Yet, it all began more recently than you might remember. It is now so prevalent – and taken for granted – that it is no surprise it’s difficult for youngsters to imagine a world without an instant message service. These days, a glance around in the street, on public transport, or anywhere there is a crowd will see many people engaged in texting on their smartphones. It’s a sobering reminder of just how far social media technology has come in the past few decades. She could not believe that not only did we not have such things as ‘instant messaging’ services, but mobile phones were very much a thing of the future. Social Media Archives - What Was Chatting on ICQ Like?Įnjoying a conversation with a 21-year-old niece recently, I was reminded of how very different the world is now when compared to that my 21-year-old self grew up in.
