ICQ

ICQ is the world's first instant messaging computer program, created by Mirabilis (company), an Israel start-up company based in Tel-Aviv. The program was first released in November, 1996. The name ''ICQ'' is a word play on the phrase "I seek you". In June 2004 ICQ celebrated its 300 millionth Uploading and downloading from download.com where it remained the most popular program for 7 consecutive years. ICQ was founded by five young Israelis: Yair Goldfinger, Arik Vardi, Sefi Vigiser and Amnon Amir and managed by Ariel Yarnitsky. ICQ allows the sending of text messages, URLs, multi-user chats, file transfers, greeting cards and more. ICQ users are identified by numbers called UIN, distributed in sequential order (though it is rumored there are gaps in the sequence). New users are now given a UIN of well over 250,000,000, and low numbers (six digits or less) have been auctioned on eBay by users who signed up in ICQ's early days. America Online (AOL) acquired Mirabilis on June 8, 1998 for $287 Million in cash. ICQ 5 was released on Monday, February 7, 2005. ==Clients== AOL's OSCAR protocol network protocol used by ICQ is proprietary, but a number of people have created more or less compatible third-party clients, including: * Adium - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN and Jabber, for Mac OS X * Ayttm - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, and Jabber * centericq - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC and Jabber * Fire (instant messenger) - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, and Jabber * Gaim - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber and Gadu-Gadu * GnomeICU (previously ''GtkICQ'') * Jabber ([http://www.jabber.com/ Official site]) / ([http://www.jabber.org/ *More competing Jabber-powered clients]) * Jimm (J2ME client, previously "Mobicq") * Kopete * Licq * mICQ * Miranda IM - plugin based, supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, BNet, and others * Proteus (instant messenger) - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, Yahoo Japan!, AIM, MSN, Jabber and iChat Rendezvous, for Mac OS X * Trillian (instant messenger) - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber and others * Yeemp - supports ICQ, AIM, and Yeemp * YSM AOL has recently begun making its ICQ software more AOL Instant Messenger-like by adding AOL Instant Messenger Smilies, as well as introducing cross AIM/ICQ communication. Users on ICQ are able to communicate with AIM users; however, such capability is in development stage stages. ==See also== * List of instant messengers * Comparison of instant messengers * QQ - a separate Chinese instant messenger and network which had its previous name, OICQ, in conflict with ICQ. ==External links== *[http://www.icq.com The Official ICQ Website] *[http://company.icq.com/info/icqstory.html The History of ICQ] *[http://mythunderbay.ezthemes.com/pcenhance/icq/main.phtml Free ICQ Skins] *[http://www.cynet.ac.cy/general/IPv6presentations/P/Chown-Messaging/renater-messaging-04.pdf Unified Instant Messaging over IPv6]: A brief introduction on Instant Messaging and its products, followed by a description of some Peer-to-Peer systems and platforms. Then the IETF standards on Instant Messaging are presented. Finally, a framework for Agent-based Unified Instant Messaging over IPv6 is proposed. Mac OS instant messengers Windows instant messengers Instant messaging

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Words begining with ICQ:

ICQ
Icq628
ICQ_Lite