ICQ: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

ICQ is an instant messaging computer program created by start-up Israeli company Mirabilis and first released in November, 1996. The name ICQ is a play on the phrase "I seek you".

ICQ was founded by Yair Goldfinger, Arik Vardi, Sefi Vigiser and Amnon Amir.

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 100,000,000, and low numbers (six digits or less) have been auctioned on eBay by users who signed up in ICQ's early days.

AOL acquired Mirabilis and ICQ in 1998. AOL's OSCAR network protocol used by ICQ is proprietary, but a number of people have created more or less compatible third-party clients, including:

• Ayttm - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, and Jabber
• centericq - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC and Jabber
• Fire - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, and Jabber
• Gaim - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber and Gadu-Gadu
• GnomeICU (previously GtkICQ)
• Kopete
• Licq
• mICQ
• Miranda IM - plugin based, supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, BNet, and others
• Trillian - supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber and others
• YSM

A rather complete list of ICQ clones is listed at the ICQ protocol page listed below.

The Instant Messaging community wishes to remove the proprietary protocol of IMs like ICQ and create a single instant messaging format, called Unified Instant Messaging under the IPv6 Protocol, involving AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo!. Today there exist two open protocols - XMPP/Jabber and SIMPLE. Both protocols are Internet drafts accepted by IETF. Jabber was proposed by Jabber Software Foundation.

AOL has recently begun making its ICQ software more AIM-like by adding AIM Smilies, as well as introducing cross AIM/ICQ communication. Users on ICQ are able to communicate with AIM users, however such capability is in beta stages.