The 1st Instant Messenger

Instant messaging, or IM, is a form of
text-based real-time communication over
the to a Internet. It is similar telephone
conversation in that what you say is received
by the person on the other end as soon
as you type it. IM users have a list of people
that they have approved as their friends,
called a contact list or "buddy" list

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They can send messages to anybody on
this list, as long as the person is online and
signed on to the IM at that time.

The first IM was ICQ, according to;
www.show-kit.com/download/samples/with/internet/html/slide6.html.
ICQ is shorthand for the phrase "I seek you",
and it was produced by the Israeli company
Mirabilis in 1996.

The company was set up by four young
programmers: Yair Goldfinger, Arik Vardi,
Sefi Vigiser and Amnon Amir. They got
most of the money to start the company
from their parents.

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IM as an idea was born when they realised
that though there were millions of people who
were connecting to the Internet, these people
were all not connected to each other.

ICQ enabled people to connect to each other
people online and talk to them, real-time.
It was released on November 1st, 1996 to
a group of 40 beta testers.

The first ICQ number was 100000, and users
would have numbers greater that that in the
order they joined. For example, the 90th user's
number would have been 100090. The founders
of ICQ are the only ones that have ICQ numbers
less than 100000.

Within 6 months, Mirabilis had registered 850,000
users of ICQ, and by June 1997, Mirabilis had become
the largest Internet communications network.

Mirabilis and ICQ were acquired by American Online
(AOL) in June 1998 for US$287 million. AOL later also
created AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), its own IM service.
AIM has since become most popular IM client in the
United States. Microsoft and Yahoo! soon followed suit
by creating their own IM clients and services - MSN Messenger
and Yahoo! Messenger. Now, the latest, still in beta -
Imvite Messenger.

And finally, you know what?

Today, there more than 180 million users of ICQ
in more than 245 countries around the globe.

by: Marzlan Michael Arzl
Admin/Publisher
Web Builder And Promotion

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