ICQ Chat Programme of Old.

Back in 1996 a small software programme called ICQ was released on download sites for the general public to use.  It was an Israeli company called Mirabilis that made ICQ popular, and everyone had it installed on their computer, a bit like Facebook today, a must have for many, but of course not all.
These days I don't use it and haven't for years as it's not the same as it used to be.

ICQ was the first Messenger programme, and it was purchased for a staggering amount of money by AOL in 1998. I can recall using ICQ before AOL purchased it.  Now AOL have sold it to Digital Sky Technologies in 2010.
One could search for someone, a random chat to anytime anytime of the day, from any country, and of course there were not so nice people but also lovely people, and I met plenty of the latter. I recall teaching many English words to people who were learning English and wished to practice along with correcting English sentences. It was first time that those of us who used it could write and receive and instant reply, how clever was that back then!

I wonder how many people remember ICQ of old?

I am still friends with many of these people, which is so lovely, one particular lady is 'Buttons'.  We used to chat at my midnight and her morning as she lives in Canada.  I would have to go and iron one of my sons shirts for school at about 12.30am and she was waiting for her tractor to warm up in the winter.  We are still friends today, and have shared much over the years.

You can find Button's Thoughts blog [Here]