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America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

nytimes.com

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Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#31

Is it bad that I can still remember my 7 digit ICQ number? It's probably been over 14 years since I've used it. I use to judge everyone that used AIM but eventually I switched over to AIM because all my friends in school had AIM.

I just knew one of the first comments was gonna be about "my x digit ICQ number". (mine was 6)

I have a 6 digit also. It's kind of funny because I had forgotten my password but remembered the number, and I saw that I had my old ISP's email address in there so I couldn't reset it. What I did was sign up for a trial dialup account on my old ISP so I would get assigned the same email address, and then did the password reset and cancelled the ISP account. Just so I could keep my 6 digit icq number.

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#34
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just knew one of the first comments was gonna be about "my x digit ICQ number". (mine was 6)

Sorry to ruin the party... but I had a 5 digit ICQ number. I used to work there.

that means you're oooooooollllllllldddddddd

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#36

I 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…

I remember I used to enter the chat rooms by saying "Ever dance with the devil in the pale moon light?" Being a popular quote from the original Batman movie and it went well with my screen name (xsatanx) it usually got a laugh...

... until I stumbled into a religious chat room.

Got my account disabled and had to have my mom call as well.

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#37
post #30
post #17

40979067. 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.

How is it we all still remember these numbers however many decades later??

http://www.icq.com/people/20687859/en

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#39
post #3

Either 300mill was a steal for AOL or Valuations are out of hand?... Which one is it?

A steal? Nobody uses ICQ anymore. AOL ended up selling ICQ for $187 million in 2010, a big loss on that deal!

Although with our ridiculous tax scheme they probably got to claim a fat tax deduction from the loss or something...

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#40
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is it we all still remember these numbers however many decades later?? http://www.icq.com/people/20687859/en

I have no idea my friend...

http://www.icq.com/people/60459407/en

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