Say what you will about ICQ, but I can still log in with my number and password from the late 90s and see the names of the people I chatted with in high school in my contacts list. This is nothing short of somewhat amazing in the world of software startups and shutterings, etc. FWIW, I've also realized that my Yahoo account from circa 1996 works just as well. my.yahoo.com even remembers what news topics, stocks, weat…
This. I miss ICQ. Well, I still use it occasionally, since it's part of my MirandaIM setup. But I miss it whenever I use Skype for IMs. For starters, I can aggregate ICQ, Jabber and a bunch of other services inside one lightweight open-source client. Also, it had an entirely different social vibe, which is missing from Skype. It was okay to chat with near-strangers in ICQ. It was okay to add people from some random f…
Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru
51–60 of 78 posts
Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru
#52Is this a leak or a release? Anyway, it seems like 5-10 years too late. I remember when I was in school (till 2003) that ICQ was huge. People knew their ICQ numbers by heart, and it was as important as e.g. WhatsApp or Facebook is today. It even anticipated microblogging - you could set a custom "status message", and people would check each others messages to see what others were doing. They had a lot of features tha…
I can still remember the "uh-oh" sound. I remember searching for and download sound boards to replace the sounds. They also had that chat window where you could actually the user typing. Nostalgia eh.
Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. I miss ICQ. Well, I still use it occasionally, since it's part of my MirandaIM setup. But I miss it whenever I use Skype for IMs. For starters, I can aggregate ICQ, Jabber and a bunch of other services inside one lightweight open-source client. Also, it had an entirely different social vibe, which is missing from Skype. It was okay to chat with near-strangers in ICQ. It was okay to add people from some random f…
YES. I haven't chatted with a stranger in AGES, but a handful of my closest friends online to this day I met by IMing random people on ICQ / AIM.
Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I really wonder how they dropped the ball. In my country, ICQ died when Microsoft started shipping MSN Messenger with Windows and worked hard to make people aware of it. (Microsoft even did a silly marketing campaign for MSN that involved a guy dressed as a butterfly). People used the Messenger that was already installed in their OS, and ICQ was history. I believe the same thing happened in most other countries, be…
I seem to have a different experience. Everyone migrated to Yahoo or AIM with MSN a distant third. In my social circle, yahoo was the king of chat for a very long time.
Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I really wonder how they dropped the ball. In my country, ICQ died when Microsoft started shipping MSN Messenger with Windows and worked hard to make people aware of it. (Microsoft even did a silly marketing campaign for MSN that involved a guy dressed as a butterfly). People used the Messenger that was already installed in their OS, and ICQ was history. I believe the same thing happened in most other countries, be…
I seem to have a different experience. Everyone migrated to Yahoo or AIM with MSN a distant third. In my social circle, yahoo was the king of chat for a very long time.
Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru
#56Say what you will about ICQ, but I can still log in with my number and password from the late 90s and see the names of the people I chatted with in high school in my contacts list. This is nothing short of somewhat amazing in the world of software startups and shutterings, etc. FWIW, I've also realized that my Yahoo account from circa 1996 works just as well. my.yahoo.com even remembers what news topics, stocks, weat…
Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fell asleep with ICQ running and my speakers turned way up once. 3 AM and someone decided to send me a message. That was like 15 years ago, I still freeze up a little when I hear it.
I had something similar just after I moved out of home for the first time. ICQ running, speakers still on from the music I'd been playing before, late at night. Someone logged on. Huge loud KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK sound. Just about gave myself a coronary!
Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not 100% certain about this, but I always felt like they stole that sound from the game Worms.
I believe it was from Chip's Challenge.
0: https://youtu.be/6iCPIUGnHQ8
1: https://youtu.be/eQwJaDyzet8?t=2m54s (apologies for the video track, couldn't find anything better)
Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru
#59Is this a leak or a release? Anyway, it seems like 5-10 years too late. I remember when I was in school (till 2003) that ICQ was huge. People knew their ICQ numbers by heart, and it was as important as e.g. WhatsApp or Facebook is today. It even anticipated microblogging - you could set a custom "status message", and people would check each others messages to see what others were doing. They had a lot of features tha…
> I really wonder how they dropped the ball. In my country, ICQ died when Microsoft started shipping MSN Messenger with Windows and worked hard to make people aware of it. (Microsoft even did a silly marketing campaign for MSN that involved a guy dressed as a butterfly). People used the Messenger that was already installed in their OS, and ICQ was history. I believe the same thing happened in most other countries, be…
So people usually used ICQ, Skype and Jabber. Gmail+GTalk done the job killing ICQ for most here.
Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I remember ICQ was always fairly nerdy and once everyone's non-nerd friends started showing up on AIM they had to make the switch. One thing I miss from ICQ was the ability to have messages stored on the server and delivered next time your friend logged in. None of the popular messaging apps today do that. I also remember that ICQ made a huge mess of their webpage back in the dawn of the dotcom era.
> One thing I miss from ICQ was the ability to have messages stored on the server and delivered next time your friend logged in. None of the popular messaging apps today do that. You mean aside Skype, Facebook messenger, Slack and Whatsapp? And those are just the 4 services I currently (and reluctantly) use. So there's going to be others I've not mentioned.
As it sure was not the case before that (you could even check, if someone briefly was online, while you were absent from your machine, running skype, via seeing the "waiting" icons near messages disappear).