ICQ
Cross-platform instant messaging system and VoIP client / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about ICQ?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
ICQ New is a cross-platform instant messaging (IM) and VoIP client. The name ICQ derives from the English phrase "I Seek You".[1] Originally developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis in 1996, the client was bought by AOL in 1998, and then by Mail.Ru Group (now VK) in 2010.[2]
Original author(s) | Mirabilis |
---|---|
Developer(s) | |
Initial release | November 15, 1996; 27 years ago (1996-11-15) |
Stable release | 10.0.46867 (May 27, 2022)
|
Repository | |
Written in | |
Platform | |
Available in |
|
Type | Instant messaging |
License | Proprietary |
Website | icq |
The ICQ client application and service were initially released in November 1996, freely available to download. The business did not have traditional marketing and relied mostly on word-of-mouth advertising instead, with customers telling their friends about it, who then informed their friends, and so on.[3] ICQ was among the first stand-alone instant messenger (IM) applications—while real-time chat was not in itself new (Internet Relay Chat [IRC] being the most common platform at the time), the concept of a fully centralized service with individual user accounts focused on one-on-one conversations set the blueprint for later instant messaging services like AIM,[4] and its influence is seen in modern social media applications. ICQ became the first widely adopted IM platform.[5]
At its peak around 2001, ICQ had more than 100 million accounts registered.[1] At the time of the Mail.Ru acquisition in 2010, there were around 42 million daily users.[6] In 2020, the Mail.Ru Group, which owns ICQ, decided to launch new software, "ICQ New", based on its messenger. The updated messenger was presented to the general public on April 6, 2020.[7] In 2022, ICQ had about 11 million monthly users.[8]
During the second week of January 2021, ICQ saw a renewed increase in popularity in Hong Kong, spurred on by the controversy over WhatsApp's privacy policy update. The number of downloads for the application increased 35-fold in the region.[9] In 2023, an investigation by Brazilian news outlet Núcleo Jornalismo found that ICQ was used to freely share child pornography due to lax moderation policies.[10]