5 mo. ago • 98%

RIP ICQ: Remembering a classic messaging app that was way ahead of its time

arstechnica.com RIP ICQ: Remembering a classic messaging app that was way ahead of its time

ICQ will cease operations June 26. If you know, you know.

32 comments

The ICQ uh-oh is my text alert message. Has been for years. No one recognizes it anymore.

45
uh oh

I had a parrot at the time and she picked up on the uh oh and would repeat it, exactly like the system, all the time.

38
- The parrot saying "Uh oh!" Is the last thing the hot blonde in a slasher movie hears.
  
  4
That wallpaper is cray!

17
- That's from the original EverQuest or one of it's early expansions.
  
  19
  
  I think it’s Ruins of Kunark
  
  https://www.keithparkinson.com/product/ruins-of-kunark-photo-stock-print/
  
  Buy a print to support the original artist
  
  9
  
  I would have also accepted
  
  warcraft 3
  
  Heros of might and Magic
  
  Warhammer (bit of a push there though)
  
  2
- The thing about that screenshot that has me curious is the shortcut to 7zip which, although it has been around for longer than I realised, no one really used until the 2nd half of the 00's
  
  5
  
  Isn’t this just a screengrab from a win98 VM?
  
  3
- Good ol Everquest.
  
  5
Just added the “uh-oh” sound as an alert tone on iOS 🫡

14
Set one up when I used a different handle but literally never used it. Thought I had a short ID number but, for reasons I'm not sure of, the piddly scrap of paper I wrote the number down on has always been in a particular place (and has been there for well over a decade), and it was 9 digits.

Must have been thinking of that handle's Slashdot ID. That was 6 digits.

... and technically still is. Wow. The account is apparently still there. Not sure I'm going back there any time soon, but took this opportunity to reset the password just in case.

7
- Still remember mine, 7 digits long. Now i gotta go install the app and see if i remember my password.
  
  3
602928

5
- Six digits, that's old school.
  
  1
Yo, guys. How is deadaim doing these days?

3
- Is that a project to bring back AIM?
  
  1
My ICQ ID was a rather low number...

3
And now I'm jealous of everyone who did experience it, because I have never heard of it until news of it shutting down reached my eyes.

It was never popular where I'm from. Not even AIM was well known to us.

2
4066872

2
What a great app! I remember for a little while you could interact directly with AOL IM. Had a superiority complex using icq while other poor dweebs were on AOL default IM app.

2
ICQ and prodigy online service were killer products.

2
"ahead of its time"? Just because Google tries to reinvent text chat every 3 seconds doesn't mean there are new things to add

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Though someone hacked it a few years ago and took it over. Demanded money from me and I told them to f off, as I hadn't used it for years.
1
This is the best summary I could come up with:

But in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it simultaneously laid the groundwork for direct messaging and social networking as we came to know it in the post-Facebook era.

In the wake of the Netscape IPO, which heralded a new era of tech-based money-making ventures, the four of them were looking for an idea to run with.

The application didn't have much marketing behind it, but it spread quickly by word of mouth—particularly in nascent online gaming communities around multi-user dungeons (MUDs), early deathmatches, and so on.

ICQ was eventually purchased by AOL, and it lost ground to more heavily financially backed services like AIM and MSN.

That company eventually morphed and changed its name to VK, and it has been keeping ICQ on life support as a sort of Russian Skype alternative since.

I signed up because I was playing the online game Meridian 59, and its community largely used ICQ for out-of-game communication.

The original article contains 571 words, the summary contains 155 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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