40979067. I don't even know how I remember. I haven't used ICQ for 15 years.
338589
Probably we remember because the client made you type it to log in? I forget, but I feel like this is true :)
America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)
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Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)
#22I assume the motivation for pulling this out of the archive is the WhatsApp purchase. However, I don't think this comparison is truly fair. Not only is WhatsApp monthly adding over twice the userbase ICQ had at the time of purchase, but it is also actually collecting revenue from them. WhatsApp is a real company with real monetization strategies.
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Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)
#23I assume the motivation for pulling this out of the archive is the WhatsApp purchase. However, I don't think this comparison is truly fair. Not only is WhatsApp monthly adding over twice the userbase ICQ had at the time of purchase, but it is also actually collecting revenue from them. WhatsApp is a real company with real monetization strategies.
> WhatsApp is a real company with real monetization strategies.
Yes and no, they only got 20 millions in revenue last year, not even profit:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-...
Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)
#2440979067. I don't even know how I remember. I haven't used ICQ for 15 years.
274231.
I no longer have access to the @r33t.org email address, nor do I know the password. Unfortunate.
edit: Looking at the profile it seems that a Russian hacked/took over the account who knows how long ago.
Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)
#25I assume the motivation for pulling this out of the archive is the WhatsApp purchase. However, I don't think this comparison is truly fair. Not only is WhatsApp monthly adding over twice the userbase ICQ had at the time of purchase, but it is also actually collecting revenue from them. WhatsApp is a real company with real monetization strategies.
To contextualize requires relativity. ICQ in 1999 had about 45 million users. There were only 248 million internet users back in 1999. That's 18% of mostly international users. AOL was optimistic. So much so this is the actual response when they beat the street during their earning reports. "(ICQ is) growing like a weed," said AOL President Bob Pittman. "Monetizing it" will be "relatively easy," he added. WhatsApp ha…
This is key. People seem to forget that 15 years ago the Internet was new and not many people used it or had access to it.
I imagine that in 15 years (fingers crossed) we'll reflect the same situation where we assume everyone has access to the Internet and not just several billion people :)
Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)
#2640979067. I don't even know how I remember. I haven't used ICQ for 15 years.
274231. I no longer have access to the @r33t.org email address, nor do I know the password. Unfortunate. edit: Looking at the profile it seems that a Russian hacked/took over the account who knows how long ago.
I don't even know what email my account uses, but I was able to log in to my account via the web UI, I'm more surprised that I remember my password than I am that I remembered the account number :)
Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)
#27It was mainly purchased for the ICQ instant messaging patents rather than userbase: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/business/u-s-awards-icq... AOL still owns that patent, HTTPS/SSL from Netscape and the cookie from netscape as well. They loaded up on patent nukes in '98: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-218360.html
Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)
#28Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)
#29I still remember back in 2000 when we still had AOL. I was eight or nine and I had my own aol account. You could have a dozen or so sub accounts on the main one. And because it was a "kids account" there were chat rooms for kids. Being the lovely kid that I was, of course I went into one and was like "how the f*ck are you all?" Well the kid chat rooms were moderated and our entire AOL account was disabled. My mom had…
A fun read on AOL's moderated chatrooms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Leader_Program
By 2000 you probably missed the volunteers, but still interesting.
Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)
#3040979067. I don't even know how I remember. I haven't used ICQ for 15 years.
http://www.icq.com/people/159272/en
Thought about selling it on ebay, since six-digit accounts used to fetch a non-trivial amount of money. But decided it wasn't worth the $100.