ICQ first launched in November 1996 through Israel-based Mirabilis, a company founded by four Israeli students who wanted to make it possible to contact people around the world through the internet and a computer. In the beginning, ICQ showed what the other person was typing in real time, though that feature was eventually removed. The name stood for I Seek You.
For many people, ICQ was one of their first experiences with something resembling social networking or online dating: a profile, a search, a message and the strange feeling that someone far away had suddenly found you.
Alongside chat boxes such as TMF, ICQ was one of the ways people chatted online in the 1990s. To find someone on ICQ, you needed their long UIN, or User Identification Number. One of the most recognisable parts of ICQ was the odd uh-oh sound that played when a message arrived. The logo also stuck in many people's minds: a green flower with thick black lines.
After launch, ICQ had 850,000 users by May 1997. By April 1998, the user base had grown to nine million, with 2.5 million using it every day. AOL eventually acquired Mirabilis and ICQ in June 1998 for 287 million dollars. In 2001, ICQ reached a peak of 100 million registered users.
As Twitter and Facebook became more popular, many users around the world left ICQ. In 2010, AOL sold ICQ to Russia's Digital Sky Technologies for 187 million dollars. That company was later renamed VK, and VK now recommends that users switch to VK Messenger or VK WorkSpace.
