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Russian Company Buys ICQ
An anonymous reader writes "AOL has sold ICQ to Digital Sky Technologies (DST), Russia's largest Internet company, for US$187.5 million. DST's offer was apparently more attractive than those of Russia's ProfMedia and China's Tencent. ICQ, originally released in 1996 and bought by AOL in 1998 for US$407 million, was one of the world's first major instant messaging systems. Although largely forgotten in English-speaking countries, it remains widely popular in Central Europe, Russia, and Israel. Moscow News has additional coverage of the deal."
Also widely popular among spammers.
I still have my ICQ account (seven-digit UIN starting with 1, woo) but pretty much the only traffic it gets anymore is spammers trying to add me and trying to send me IMs. Trillian fortunately blocks the latter for me.
Soylens viridis homines es
I am not surprised by who would buy it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I still use some OLD version of ICQ on Windows 7, because I never found another client that behaves as nicely. All the 3rd party stuff I've tried either failed to connect to the ICQ servers or failed basic features like file transfer or the ability to communicate with AIM screen-names from an ICQ account. Also, this ICQ client still has no ads and never pops up a chat screen overtop of anything else I'm doing. I frickin hate it when those other clients steal window focus even when you're typing in an unrelated program. All IM programs should blink patiently in the tray!
Morphing Software
Largely forgotten by the Slashdot demographic maybe - but that tiny and self selected slice of the demographic pie is hardly representative.
What are you talking about? They only sold ICQ, an instant messenger client. They haven't gone out of business.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
huh-oh
(or however you would transliterate the sound of receiving a message)
UhOh!
Hey now, be nice (as the same could be said for AIM).
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
At least the ICQ style.
ICQ assumes multi-line messages. (No "send-on-enter" crap.)
ICQ has had offline-messages from the beginning.
ICQ always kept message history.
Those are the biggest two, but there are a bunch of other things that ICQ did right when the other IM companies did it wrong.
AIM and MSN started out as 'super private IRC'. It behaves the same as the input line on an IRC channel.
ICQ though is more like 'super fast email'. ICQ is a 'low overhead email', like Verizon's "Push To Talk" is a low overhead Cell Phone call.
However, I admit that it's pretty much dead. The only people left that I still talk to are the same people I talked to back in 1998. All my family and 'new' friends are using a bunch of different networks. That's why I use a multi-network client (Miranda right now.).
JABBER is the future though.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
IIRC, the only private information put into your ICQ account was your password. Anything else was public. If you are a dope and use the same passwords for everything, then you probably have concerns. Other than that, I cannot think of any. But it is in Russia, and there are plenty of stories about what happens once your information gets there.
But more concerning is the potential disconnect from the Oscar protocol. In short, will ICQ and AIM be able to communicate together still, and will ICQ remain using the Oscar protocol? And to what server will we connect? (Probably in TFA, but who reads those?)
I started using ICQ back in... 1995? I think, anyway around then with an 8 digit UIN starting with 12. I would have jumped on much sooner but I could not until StrICQ for the Amiga. I continued using ICQ after I started using Windows machines around 2000, but after AOL bought it the bloat became annoying: Xtraz or whatever, web search, ads, skins, and other crap. Fortunately, there are plenty of hacks to remove the annoying "features" in the full ICQ version after ICQLite was given the axe. And, no, I never bothered with any of the other chat clients on Windows so long as StrICQ and AmigAIM worked, Windows chat was just utility.
ICQ assumes multi-line messages. (No "send-on-enter" crap.)
Most clients allow you to configure Ctrl-Enter as submit shortcut. Then enter does create new lines.
Or if not possible, you can use Ctrl-Enter for multi-line messages, and Enter to submit. But it's hard and annoying.
And obviously, MSN is the exception, as its users would not have the mental capacity to imagine wanting something like that in the first place.
But unfortunately, this does not protect you from the retards ;)))
who
lol
write
their
messages
like
this
lol
inlucidng
no
puntcuatin
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preppr spelng.
Luckily, there still is per-user invisibility and ignore lists. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Oh, I forgot to mention: :)
It’s wrong that ICQ is mostly dead. It’s mostly dead where you live. But luckily far from it everywhere else.
I know children and teens who use ICQ. Some weren’t even alive when ICQ started.
But it comes down to if their older friends and family used ICQ back then.
Also: Jabber is now called XMPP, as far as I know. (I would have preferred it to be lightweight EBML instead of overhead monster XML.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
How does this affect things like being able to sign into AIM using an ICQ number, and adding ICQ numbers to your AIM buddy list?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I believe AIM is the most popular protocol in the US. MSN is more popular in the UK and surrounding areas.
Right, because you can only find honest people and companies in the Glorious USA.
In Soviet Russia, Q seeks I.
ah, sorry.
I know a few people who still use it. I'm trying to convince them otherwise.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
AOL has sold ICQ to Digital Sky Technologies (DST), Russia's largest Internet company, for US$187.5 million.
I connect to ICQ using Pidgin. I also connect to GTalk and a few XMPP servers using Pidgin. The XMPP server software is running on some version of Linux--probably Ubuntu or Debian. It was free to download, free to setup, and free to use. HOW THE #$*@# IS ICQ WORTH $187.5 MILLION?!?!.
Is the Windows ICQ client really a direct pipe for advertisers to watch your web surfing habits or turn on and view your webcam at random or something? How in the hell can you buy an instant messaging company for $187.5 million now-a-days? IM clients and servers are free.
There's no place like
Their hackers have stolen most of the older ICQ numbers (mine included)
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Sadly, the post above isn't a troll. I don't know anyone who uses AIM, nobody uses ICQ anymore (was different 10 years ago), nobody uses Yahoo Messenger either.
So it's either MSN, email or all that Facebook/twitter/etc crap.
I'm not your pal, buddy!
The Germans seem to love it as well. I was living with a number of masters students and I was absolutely shitting bricks to here them talk about a program that I thought was completely wiped from the face of the earth a decade ago by MSN and AIM/Google.
It's moved on a lot from what it used to be, I think it might even support instant messaging now. Sad because the only thing I ever liked about it was that you leave people messages when they weren't online, sort of a hybrid email/chat.
I'm not your buddy, guy!
It got replaced by NTSC.
ICQ was killed by microsoft's o/s monopoly just like netscape. since messenger started to be pushed in windows installations, icq users dwindled speedily. soon we were left to a group of 'elite' people, who were there before instant messengers first came out, while the masses were on messenger. due to business needs, we eventually had to migrate to messenger. most of us hated it, and we still hate it. thankfully googletalk came, but it is still relatively unknown.
i very much think eu should slap ms with an anti monopoly fine and force them to offer instant messenger choice screen during installation.
Read radical news here
What's 187.5 million for a dead IM network ? :P
I was one of the early ICQ users in the 90s, 6-digit UID, yadda yadda. It was ground-breaking for the time, but that time has come and gone. Everyone I know moved to MSN Messenger, and ICQ pretty much died overnight.
Me, I don't even bother with IM anymore. If I had a business use for it, I'd be fine, but for just keeping in touch with friends I'm quite content with Facebook and that century-old tech the telephone.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
i was reminded of ICQ when google first showed of wave. This largely because ICQ had two ways to show conversations. Either the now typical way with each line showing up in a common window. Or one where each character typed would be sent across so the other side could see you type in near real time. It also had keyboard sound effects, iirc.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Absolutely agree - ICQ is a dead end, that's why the price is going down. Some big Russian companies like mail.ru has already switch to Jabber. Soon or later ICQ will be dead.
I'm not sure if I would call it super fast email. ICQ has multi-user chat which was awesome and the AIM, MSN, etc came about and they did not have functionality at first. TBH, I only moved away from MSN because of my frineds who went to MSN. If it weren't completely useless minus friends I would go to Google Talk / ICQ but no one really uses those.
No it couldn't. Actually, it can't be said for ICQ either. ICQ was created in 1996, AIM didn't appear until 1997. My ICQ UIN is actually the oldest way of contacting me that still works, although my mobile phone number has been the same for only one year less. Email addresses, XMPP, and postal addresses have all changed in less time than that. For some reason, I can still remember my ICQ number, although I've not given it to anyone for about 7 years.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I started using ICQ back in... 1995? I think, anyway around then with an 8 digit UIN starting with 12
I joined in late 1997 with a 7-digit number starting with 6, so with an 8 digit number you can't have joined before 1998. You definitely didn't join in 1995 - the service wasn't launched until 1996.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
In Soviet Messaging, I seek YOU!
Oh, wait...
Exactly. I was not trolling. I’m just pretty angry at the people acting in monkey see, monkey do fashion... switching to MSN and FailBook because "everyone else does it". You know, having lived in Germany most of my life, this reminds me of this being the general excuse of people who did not fight the Nazis back then. They didn’t want “to have the stress” of fighting it. It seems it’s still a popular excuse. :(
Sure, I can’t and won’t even try to compete with those who actually fought a dictatorship. Those guys are heroes.
But I would hate myself for not at least withstanding what I think is wrong. Because otherwise I could just as well be a stupid cow following the herd.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
touche. The point is, both AIM and ICQ are some of the oldest IM services still going. Too bad the Russians got a hold of ICQ. I actually dreamed of one day buying ICQ away from AOL. Back to dreaming, I guess.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Makes sense. The whole period between 1995 and 1998 is a mostly blur to me. I moved from BBSing on my 128D to the Amiga, then got hold of TermiteTCP and got online (aside from GEnie) via one of the local BBS's TCP/IP door. Once college offered dial-up Internet I was on-line thereafter pretty much 24/7. Then I discovered IRC, that was it for me. Not a quantum leap for me after having been in the ill-fated Q-Link rooms for years until the abrupt shutdown in 1994.
Although, I would say it might have been late 1997 as well. At the time ICQ was growing exceptionally fast. I could do some archeology in my system to make the determination, but I am pretty sure it was just before 1998 based upon jobs and moves.
Blah. Enough of that rambling.
> Also: Jabber is now called XMPP, as far as I know. (I would have preferred it to be lightweight EBML instead of overhead monster XML.)
Jabber and XMPP are absolutely horrible, probably one of the most insanely byzantine protocols ever conceived, and they keep expanding it all the time (by now there are *hundreds* of extensions to the protocol).
The inept use of XML is just the tip of the iceberg, and it is not even real XML, but *streamed* XML, which means parsers need to be even more complicated (as if parsing XML was not enough of a pain already).
And all this for a functionality that after ten years still barely matches IRC (most jabber clients have trouble doing group chat and file transfer, or if they do they use different protocol extensions that are not compatible with other servers and clients).
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
I guess, I'm not very social, I kept my MySpace site for only some month. I'm in keeping my mostly inactive LinkedIn account alive strictly for business networking.
But even I have to chat, when email is overhead or not possible! I knew instant messaging back at univeristy since 1994 by virtue of IRC and the chat facility of ICS (internet chess, does it still exist btw?). I think joined ICQ somewhere in 1998 or 1999 because "everyone did it", but had not much use for it. The ICQ client then was quite decent.
In 2000 I found work at a software company as a consultant. Two years later, a colleague suggested using IM for fast communication within the company and our development partners. I installed IM again and was shocked that it had turned into an unusable mess of bloatware so quickly. It rivalled the Realplayer, which was quite a feat! My colleague said, I should install Miranda. I realized, that IM clients can be substituted as long as the protocol is implemented and the network allows it (AIM vs Trillian, anyone?).
I later used Miranda to also connect to AIM, Yahoo!Messenger and - urgh! - MSN Messenger. Nowadays I use Skype to chat, never used GTalk despite being an early user of GMail, so no experience with XMPP protocol and clients.
The second thing it did wrong was allow itself to be bought by AOL. It may have been a lucrative move for Mirabilis but it consigned ICQ to playing second banana to AIM. Its surprising ICQ lasted so long since AOL bought and subsequently neglected Compuserve in similar circumstances but it didn't flourish either.
Sadly, the post above isn't a troll. I don't know anyone who uses AIM, nobody uses ICQ anymore (was different 10 years ago), nobody uses Yahoo Messenger either.
So it's either MSN, email or all that Facebook/twitter/etc crap.
Nobody uses MSN where I live. Most of the people never heard of it. Everybody uses Skype (kids, moms, grand moms), few use ICQ (mostly older guys - 30+ years old) and some google's chat (techie guys).
One of the first things I would do on a Windows install was to put a rule in the firewall that C:\Program Files\ICQ\ICQ.exe couldn't access icq.com. Even before the program was installed.
If it couldn't get to the ad server it couldn't even get the first set of ads. Just an awful looking white box at the bottom of every message window.
Beat a flashing/changing ad by a mile though.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
Actually, an ICQ number was a bragging right even a half decade ago if the number was substantially low. When I started with ICQ, my UIN was (and still is although used once a year or so) 195XXX (where xxx is a number I don't care to advertise, of course, since it's spammed enough). When the internet really started to explode with new users in 98, UINs went from six digits to eight digits in a very short time and I remember people bragging to their friends online how their number was one of the first in the millions. About six years ago I remember telling someone online what my UIN was and they offered to buy it from me. I thought the whole thing had really gone too far then. But, by then I had already moved on to other things and the spamming of ICQ was starting to pick up. A few years later when I logged back in for the first time in a very long time, I had so many spam messages that I found the service to be nearly useless.
I still have all the old, original ICQ sounds for nostalgic reasons. What's funny is that in a local gas station in the small town where I live, the cash register they have makes the ICQ sound "uh oh" whenever they do a transaction. I just grin as I think I'm probably the only one that realizes this when I'm in there buying something.
Of course the russians would want to buy out the main staple of their spamware enterprise. seriously, if someone else had bought it, and sent out malicious updates that contained malware, imagine the botnet of botnets they cold have created, hey....wait a minute....
... so the real reason behind the purchase is to incorporate ICQ into junk like Mafia Wars, and all the other FACEB00C games that they control, and use it as an off FACEB00C's record communications device to take over Mafia World. ... or something like that.
Uh-oh!, indeed.
Time to deactivate my UIN.
One of these days, I am going to flip out. When I flip out, I'll be back in five minutes.