???? – 2017retired
Funimation
“Dubbed, loved, and eventually absorbed by its own successor — rest easy, senpai.”
“U-H-O — it sought you, found you, and finally signed off.”
ICQ, whose name came from the phrase I Seek You, was a cross-platform instant messaging and VoIP client launched by Mirabilis in November 1996, founded by Yair Goldfinger, Sefi Vigiser, Amnon Amir, Arik Vardi, and Yossi Vardi. It was among the first stand-alone instant messengers, and its blueprint of a centralized service with individual accounts for one-on-one chats shaped everything that came after, including AIM.
ICQ was bought by AOL in 1998 and then by Mail.Ru Group (now VK) in 2010, and was discontinued on December 15, 2017. At its peak around 2001 it had more than 100 million registered accounts, though daily users had fallen to around 42 million by the Mail.Ru acquisition. Every messenger you use today is, in some way, answering the door ICQ knocked on first.
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“Dubbed, loved, and eventually absorbed by its own successor — rest easy, senpai.”
“Gchat by any name, we typed on until the end.”
“Small in the pocket, enormous in the heart. Rest easy, little one.”