Apparently, in the past, the program stored on the computer kept track of your contacts, not the server.Common signatures include a greeting, your name, your company name and possibly a website address and a phone number. Unfortunately, only one of my old contacts still shows on the list. Low and behold, version 2001b still works and boy does using it bring back memories. I had to use an old ICQ version which let me sign on with my old 7-digit UIN. My phone is from 2003 so I don't think that is what its after. I tried installing the latest version, which is version 10, but the dumb thing wouldn't let me sign on with my UIN. Yesturday a fellow Vogons member was complaining about the damn messenger programs and said something about ICQ.

So it doesn't sound like the trend has changed in this regard. My wife, who works in IT, seems to have a new messenger program every few years that the company uses. Now days, I have no idea what people are using.

But there is nobody on IRC and due to its BBS like interface, I don't think it will ever make a comeback. I never stopped using IRC during this period and am still logged in to this day. I started using Google Talk at one point, but that was taken away from us, just like Picasa was. I don't think I bothered to install ICQ past 2002 or 2003. The likely factor was competition, everybody wanting something new, and the ugly bloated client that ICQ released over the years. As the years went on, it seemed like everybody wanted a piece of the action - MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk!, etc, and ICQ seemed to have lost favour. There was also AIM95 that I had to use because of one person I knew who only used AIM. Then in about 1998, I signed up for the latest fad, ICQ, with their trademark 'ut oh'. I believe it came bundled with my ISP, Prodigy, GNN, and CompuServe. I started 'chatting' with Internet Relay Chat (IRC) in 1995.

What do you all think? Will it come back on its own? Should we start a trend to force it back?

Skype icq messenger