Originally a bare-bones Windows application to simply send text messages across the Internet, ICQ has evolved into a complex, multimedia communication tool. Today's ICQ clients contain features such as file transfer, voice chat, SMS paging, post-it notes, to do lists, greeting cards, birthday reminders, and links to ICQ's portal homepage where you can find the latest in sports, traveling, movies, and more. In addition, numerous clones have appeared for a variety of operating systems.
ICQ revolutionized the way people converse online and quickly took the Net by storm. The embodiment of viral marketing, ICQ spread by word of mouth and the service reached 10 million users by the middle of 1998, when it was acquired by AOL in a $287 million cash deal to form ICQ, Inc.
Seeing the explosion in ICQ's popularity, other companies quickly sought to release their own instant message services, in hopes of reaching a similar level of success. Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Pager in March 1998, and Microsoft followed suit in July 1999 with its MSN Messenger product. AOL had been running its own AOL Instant Messenger service since May 1997.
Quietly celebrating the client's fifth birthday, the ICQ team continues to expand and improve features in an effort to fend off competitors encroaching upon its market share. A Web-based version of ICQ, appropriately dubbed ICQ Lite, recently entered alpha testing.
ICQ has also developed Web site integration capabilities into its latest clients. While visiting a Web site which has this integration, users can access basic ICQ functions, including contact lists, directly within the browser. According to ICQ Product Manager Ronen Arad, "Businesses can take advantage of this feature and integrate ICQ contact lists with basic ICQ functions within their Windows application (to be used for online games, network applications, etc.)."
Today, people worldwide rely on instant messaging as a vital form of communication. According to a study released Wednesday by Jupiter Media Metrix, Americans last year spent over 18.5 billion minutes, or 309 million hours, logged into IM services such as ICQ. ICQ today has nearly 130 million users worldwide, and gains one new registration every second.
