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Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

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Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

#31

Post by dejv »

giarc wrote: post #15
captainmuon wrote: post #10

Is 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.

I used to work in one game company and one of my team mate had parrot that he was bringing to our offices. This parrot like to annoy certain people with uh-oh sound, which always cause automatic reaction of checking the the ICQ client and angry swears to the parrot.

Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

#32

Post by captainmuon »

eterm wrote: post #17
captainmuon wrote: post #10

Is 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…

Desktop software always had a friction that the web didn't. Desktop software was fine, until you were in an internet cafe, at a friend's house, or most importantly, at work, where computers were locked down. You couldn't use msn messenger at work, you could use facebook because it was just a web page.

Although to be fair, there was ICQ2GO (go.icq.com), and a bit later meebo. Both worked fine on the road, at internet cafes, or at school.

Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

#33

Post by sakopov »

huhtenberg wrote: post #7

A thing to keep in mind that ICQ used to be insanely huge in Russia and neighboring countries. Back in late 90s people would know their own ICQ ID by heart (which are numerical) and exchange them instead of phone numbers. You also could buy vanity 4-5 digit ICQ numbers for anywhere between few hundred dollars to few thousands. Don't know if things changed now, they probably have.

ICQ was insanely popular in the US as well. I remember getting on it and chatting with my friends when i was a teenager in the late 90s.

Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

#34

Post by rmsaksida »

captainmuon wrote: post #10

Is 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, because it only took a couple of years for all the foreign ICQ buddies I had to move off to MSN.

Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

#35

Post by mintplant »

captainmuon wrote: post #32
eterm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desktop software always had a friction that the web didn't. Desktop software was fine, until you were in an internet cafe, at a friend's house, or most importantly, at work, where computers were locked down. You couldn't use msn messenger at work, you could use facebook because it was just a web page.

Although to be fair, there was ICQ2GO (go.icq.com), and a bit later meebo. Both worked fine on the road, at internet cafes, or at school.

Also eBuddy. I remember IM-ing late into the night with that and terrible web browsers on the PSP and DS.

Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

#36

Post by mikey_p »

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, weather locations, etc I setup nearly 20 years ago.

Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

#37

Post by karlshea »

giarc wrote: post #15
captainmuon wrote: post #10

Is 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.

I'm not 100% certain about this, but I always felt like they stole that sound from the game Worms.

Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

#38

Post by [deleted] »

giarc wrote: post #15
captainmuon wrote: post #10

Is 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.

[deleted]

Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

#39

Post by jandrese »

captainmuon wrote: post #10

Is 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…

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.

Re: Sources of ICQ desktop client by mail.ru

#40

Post by robzyb »

jandrese wrote: post #39
captainmuon wrote: post #10

Is 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…

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.

Eh? Firstly, people are never offline these days. Secondly, Facebook Messenger (and SMS and Email).

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