ICQ
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Wikipedia-Article "ICQ"
ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, created by Mirabilis, an Israeli start-up company based in Tel-Aviv. The program was first released in November, 1996, and was the first all-internet instant messaging program. ICQ was awarded two major patents by the U.S. patent office. The name ICQ is a play on the phrase "I seek you".
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Features
ICQ allows the sending of text messages with offline support, URLs, multi-user character-by-character chats, resumable file transfers, SMSes, greeting cards and more. Other features included a searchable user directory and POP3 email support. Even though such features were made available since around 2000, many of the main competitors such as AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger have failed to implement such power-user oriented features even to this day. Instead, they have targeted younger users with an avalanche of colors, avatars, and animations.
ICQ users are identified by numbers called UIN, distributed in sequential order (though it is rumored there are gaps in the sequence). New users are now given a UIN of well over 300,000,000, and low numbers (six digits or fewer) have been auctioned on eBay by users who signed up in ICQ's early days.
History
ICQ was developed in 1996 by Mirabilis, the creators of the first fully functional internet-wide Instant messanger comprising presence, buddy list and rapid messaging was founded by four young Israelis: Yair Goldfinger, Arik Vardi, Sefi Vigiser and Amnon Amir. After AOL bought it, it was managed by Ariel Yarnitsky and Avi Shechter.
America Online (AOL) acquired Mirabilis on June 8, 1998 for $287 million in cash.
On December 19, 2002, AOL Time Warner announced that ICQ had been issued a United States patent for instant messaging.
In June 2004 ICQ celebrated its 300 millionth download from download.com where it remained the most popular program for 7 consecutive years.
ICQ 5, released on Monday, February 7, 2005, was an upgrade on ICQ Lite - a divergence from the main ICQ program that has an big addition - Xtraz, which now offers games and features appealing to the younger users of the internet. ICQ Lite was originally an idea to offer the lighter users of instant messaging an alternative client which was a smaller download and less resource-hungry for the (then) relatively slow computers.
Although innovative at the start, the general trend of ICQ updates has been towards bloatware. Users have by and large migrated to the competition: MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, and Skype.
Other products
ICQ Pro came about since the emergence of ICQ Lite to differentiate between the two available clients. However, ever since AOL's involvement, development of ICQ Pro 2003 had effectively been left abandoned, to the disappointment of veteran users of ICQ.
Spinoffs of ICQ included a corporate version for the workplace (named ICQ Groupware), and ICQ Surf, which displayed a list of other ICQ users who also happened to be surfing on the same website as you were. Both programs are no longer available to download.
Clients
AOL's OSCAR network protocol used by ICQ is proprietary, but a number of people have created more or less compatible third-party clients, including:
- Adium - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN and Jabber, for Mac OS X
- Ayttm - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, and Jabber
- centericq - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC and Jabber, text-based
- Easy Message (http://www.easymessage.net/) - Small instant messenger (250kb), supports MSN, AOL, ICQ, and Yahoo.
- Fire - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, and Jabber, for Mac OS X
- Gaim - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber and Gadu-Gadu
- GnomeICU (previously GtkICQ)
- Jabber (Official site) / (*More competing Jabber-powered clients)
- Jimm (J2ME client, previously "Mobicq")
- Kopete
- Licq
- mICQ - text-based
- Miranda IM - plugin based, supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, BNet, and others. For MS Windows only.
- Proteus - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, Yahoo Japan!, AIM, MSN, Jabber and iChat Rendezvous, for Mac OS X
- Trillian - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber and others
- Yeemp - supports ICQ, AIM, and Yeemp
- YSM - text-based
- &RQ (ICQ) - Support ICQ only , available in Russian and English only.
AOL has recently begun making its ICQ software more AIM-like by adding AIM Smilies, as well as introducing cross AIM/ICQ communication. Users on ICQ are able to communicate with AIM users; however, such capability is in beta stages.
Films
A short film about ICQ was written in 2001 called ICQ and was written by Greg McLean, who later wrote Wolf Creek. The film was described by its writer as a mystery/drama, and it concerns a man who while surfing the ICQ network comes across a woman whose acquaintance he could well have done without. The relationship runs the gauntlet of intrigue through to the sinister.
The short film took out the "Best Director" award in October 2001 at the International and Independent Film and Video festival in New York. On return to his home soil in Australia, McLean's film was nominated for Best Sound Design (short film) for the prestigious AFI (Australian Film Institute) awards in 2002.
See also
- List of instant messengers
- Comparison of instant messengers
- QQ - a separate Chinese instant messenger and network which had its previous name, OICQ, in conflict with ICQ.
- Yamigo - a service that allows ICQ chat via mobile phones over GPRS or other wireless data protocols
External links
- The Official ICQ Website
- ICQ Use Policy - anything you post on icq belongs to icq
- The History of ICQ
- Free ICQ Skins
- Unified Instant Messaging over IPv6: A brief introduction on Instant Messaging and its products, followed by a description of some Peer-to-Peer systems and platforms. Then the IETF standards on Instant Messaging are presented. Finally, a framework for Agent-based Unified Instant Messaging over IPv6 is proposed.
- The ICQ/AOL acquisition page
- ICQz.Net Unofficial icq-related Forum
- ICQ movie (2001)
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