Remember ICQ? If you grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s, you must have heard of ICQ, one of the most popular messaging apps of that time. But like all good things, its time has come. The platform will be saying goodbye after 28 years on June 26th.
ICQ, a social media pioneer, is saying goodbye on June 26th
ICQ was one of the first instant messaging apps that we ever used. I Seek You, aka ICQ, was developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis before it was acquired by AOL in 1996 and then by VK in 2010. The platform had more than 100 million registered accounts during its peak time around 2001. And during its acquisition by VK, it had 42 million daily users.
However, with the increase in popularity of other social media apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, ICQ slowly began to disappear into obscurity.
The company, which boasted an impressive 42 million daily users back in 2010, was only left with 11 million monthly users in 2022. They tried to win back users by introducing new software called ICQ New; however, that effort didn’t do much to regain their popularity.
Now, the company has decided it’s finally time to shut down. They posted a simple message on their website — ICQ will stop working from June 26. The message also encourages users to switch to VK Messenger for chatting with friends and VK Workspace for chatting with colleagues. That’s all the website offers; no grand farewell message about the history of the service or explanation for the shutdown.
This was the expected move, considering the app’s removal from major app stores
The ICQ app disappeared from the Google Play Store and App Store a long time ago. This indicates that ICQ began working on its shutdown well in advance, and they’re just officially saying goodbye now.
It’s definitely the end of an era, though most of us thought it had already ended. We’ll remember and miss the iconic Uh oh! alert that used to play whenever we got a message.
