The First Ever Instant Messaging Service Finally Sold
Two months ago, ICQ was sold by AOL to Digital Sky Technologies, a Moscow-based investment firm that focuses on internet technologies. Officially, it was worth $187.5 million when the deal was made last April. Well, the original developer of the instant messaging program, Mirabilis, used to be worth more than twice when it was purchased by AOL around a decade ago. ICQ is actually the pioneer in instant messaging service; it holds the patent for this technology.
Given the fact that ICQ is the first Internet-wide IM service provider, why then did AOL sell this technology? I’m guessing that there must have been a lack of marketing and re-branding which led to the messenger’s decline in popularity vis-à-vis AIM, YM and MSN Messenger (now, Windows Live Messenger). The entering of VoIP providers in hi-tech market may also have aggravated the existing ICQ problem. Good thing there are still around 20 million loyal followers of ICQ but most of them are in Russia, where ICQ seems to be the king in the IM market; hence, the sale to a Russian company.
I belong to these group of loyal ICQ followers because I am one of the few who availed of this service and I sort of have a debt of gratitude to this innovative idea of sending messages to family and friends all over the world – instantaneously! In fact, I used to send instant messages using ICQ almost every day. My friends who are using other instant messengers are even encouraged to have ICQ installed in their PCs if only to contact me. There are so many applications that are installed in my desktop computer right now but Mozilla, MS Office, ICQ and Norton help me carry my day-to-day activities best. That being said, it would only be right for me to give them back my loyalty, in exchange.
