First post, by feipoa
- Rank
- l33t++
What do you all think? Will it come back on its own? Should we start a trend to force it back?
I started "chatting" with Internet Relay Chat (IRC) in 1995. I believe it came bundled with my ISP, Prodigy, GNN, and CompuServe. I don't recall the order anymore. Then in about 1998, I signed up for the latest fad, ICQ, with their trademark "ut oh". There was also AIM95 that I had to use because of one person I knew who only used AIM. 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. The likely factor was competition, everybody wanting something new, and the ugly bloated client that ICQ released over the years. I don't think I bothered to install ICQ past 2002 or 2003. People gradually left AIM as well. I started using Google Talk at one point, but that was taken away from us, just like Picasa was.
I never stopped using IRC during this period and am still logged in to this day. But there is nobody on IRC and due to its BBS like interface, I don't think it will ever make a comeback. Now days, I have no idea what people are using. My wife, who works in IT, seems to have a new messenger program every few years that the company uses. So it doesn't sound like the trend has changed in this regard.
Yesturday a fellow Vogons member was complaining about the damn messenger programs and said something about ICQ. I tried installing the latest version, which is version 10, but the dumb thing wouldn't let me sign on with my UIN. It was insisting I use a phone number. My phone is from 2003 so I don't think that is what its after. I had to use an old ICQ version which let me sign on with my old 7-digit UIN. Low and behold, version 2001b still works and boy does using it bring back memories. It is a simple unoffensive interface. Unfortunately, only one of my old contacts still shows on the list. Apparently, in the past, the program stored on the computer kept track of your contacts, not the server.
So what do you think? Revival? What does everyone use these days?
Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.