The end of an era: ICQ March 8, 2009
Posted by claudio in Desktop.Tags: icq, im, obsolete
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There was a time when icq was the only IM-application in town. Unbelievable that twelve years have already passed.
Today there is an open protocol alternative that I prefer (jabber), but because I use a multi-protocol client I didn”t mind adding my icq contacts.
Having a look at my contacts, I can see that most people are using the MS protocol/client (the one with the annoying nicknames) or jabber/gtalk. There is a bridge between AOL/ICQ en the -probably closed- protocol of ichat, resulting in MacOSX users being the only reason to have an icq account.
Well, even the last MacOsX users on my contactlist moved to gtalk. So I guess no reason to use icq, specially knowing that AOL, the owner company, likes to break the protocol often to annoy users of third-party clients.
Anyway, kthxbye.
ICQ was never the only Instant Messaging application in town… it wasn’t the first one, nor was it ever the most popular, prevalent nor the most useful of the bunch.
IRC (undisputably the world’s largest, most populated Instant Messaging framework) was released to the masses in 1988, and has tens of millions of users. It still does. Long before the advent of ICQ, and continuing, long after.
AOL had several variants of their precursor to AIM, and these were already in circulation in 1995 (predating ICQ’s existence by a full year).
ICQ was never innovative, cutting-edge, nor trend-setting.
Its good to see a loser fade away, albeit a bit.