ICQ



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ICQ is the first all internet instant messaging program. Before MSN, ICQ was the most popular chat program. It was launched in 1996 by an Israeli comapany called Mirabilis. ICQ received two major patents by the U.S. patent office. The name ICQ is based on the phrase "I seek you."

=Features=

ICQ permits sending URLS, multi-user character-by-character chats, resumable file transfers, SMSes, greeting cards and more. Some people likes to use ICQ more than MSN because ICQ allows users to send messages when the receiver is offline. Users can search for other users through a searchable user directory and POP3 email support. Although such features were available since 2000, the competitors such as AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger failed to implement such power-user oriented features even to this day. As an alternative, those competitors targeted younger users with an avalanche of colors, avatoars, and animations.

To differenciate, each ICQ user has an UIN number which is distributed in sequential order. There has been a rumor that the UIN numbers have gaps in the sequence. New users now are given a UIN of over 300,000,000, and the low numbers (six digits or fewer) have been auctioned on eBay by earlier ICQ users.

=Time-Line=


 * **__1996__** - Mirabilis, an Israeli comapany, created the first fully functional internet-wide instant messenger. The buddy list and rapid messaging was founded by four young Israelis: Yair Goldfinger, Arik Vardi, Sefi Vigiser and Amnon Amir.
 * __**June 8, 1998**__ - America Online (AOL) purchased Mirabilis for $287 million in cash. After ICQ was bought by AOL, the managers were changed to Ariel Yarnitsky and Avi Schechter.
 * __**December 19, 2002**__ - AOL Time Warner make known that ICQ had been issued a United States patent for instant messaging.
 * __**June 2004 -**__ ICQ remained the most popular program for seven straight years and celebrated its 300 millionth download from download.com.
 * **__February 7, 2005__** - A new version of ICQ (ICQ 5) was released. It was an upgrade on ICQ Lite. ICQ 5 offers games and features that are more appealing to the younger users of the internet. Although ICQ upgraded, a lot of users have moved to the competitors: MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, and Google Talk.

Work Cited
"ICQ - Wikipedia." __Wikipedia__. Wikipedia. 28 Feb. 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icq.

"ICQ." __ICQ__. ICQ Inc. 28 Feb. 2006 .