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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)

#41

Post by klochner »

securingsincity wrote: post #12
securingsincity wrote: post #11

$19 billion and whatsapp has 465 million users, and ICQ was purchased for $287 million had 12 million users at the time. $40 dollars per user vs $24 dollars per user. Now if the goal were to acquire users. its far more likely that facebook would have a huge overlap in the number of users it has already and those on whatsapp. That means maybe a cost of acquisition at let's completely speculate $100 dollars per user(ma…

oh and the fact that whatsapp actually is very profitable

not very profitable compared to the acquisition price.

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

#42

Post by jaredsohn »

codezero wrote: post #21
nailer wrote: post #17

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 :)

I think it was due to how you tell people to add you as a friend. There was a search you could do but if you had a common name there would be multiple matches (and I don't think there were photos or a count of mutual friends to help you figure out which one) and perhaps it might have been easier than telling someone to look you up via email (especially since email addresses were often random words rather than first.last@gmail.)

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

#43

Post by krstck »

nailer wrote: post #17

40979067. I don't even know how I remember. I haven't used ICQ for 15 years.

52535425. And then I was so angry when that "children under 13 can't use the internet" or whatever act went into effect and I got locked out of it (young and stupid enough to put my real birth date!). I made a new account but can't remember the ID, I stopped using it pretty quickly after that.

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

#44

Post by Implicated »

alaskamiller wrote: post #15
slg wrote: post #7

I 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…

10554049

how do I remember that?

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

#47

Post by ggreenbe »

ama729 wrote: post #23
slg wrote: post #7

I 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-...

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison to make. Most of their revenue comes after the first year. With the growth they had last year and current growth, their revenue should exponentially rise over 2014 and 2015.

Also, I wonder if being bought by facebook could help reduce hardware costs by utilizing facebook's infustracture

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

#48

Post by bhouston »

Aldo_MX wrote: post #40
Brandon0 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Whoa, that was a long time ago:

http://www.icq.com/people/9275290/

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

#50

Post by digz »

hazelnut wrote: post #49

There are still people out there who try to sell their ICQ numbers: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.T...

I haven't used ICQ since 2000 or so, but as soon as I read your comment, I immediately remembered my old number!

For context, I rarely remember my anniversary.

EDIT: I just logged in. Out of the hundreds of contacts I had, there's one sad guy still online.

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