(Paris) Flagship instant messaging on computer of the late 1990s, ICQ definitively stopped on Wednesday after almost 28 years of existence, according to a message posted on the site.
“The service has stopped working”, we can now read on the ICQ website, a short message on a black background and accompanied by a flower with green petals, the famous icon of the service.
The site now links to VK Messenger, the messaging service of Russian technology giant VK, also owner of ICQ (“I seek you”, I seek you in French).
The parent company of Russia’s leading social network VKontakte bought the online messaging pioneer from the American internet portal AOL in 2010 for $187.5 million.
Created in 1996 by the Israeli company Mirabilis then bought by AOL in 1998, ICQ offered a revolutionary concept at the time: having instant online conversations with other users on its network.
Ancestor of today’s popular applications like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, ICQ claimed more than 32 million unique visitors per month when it was acquired in 2010.
According to AOL, about 80% of its users were between the ages of 13 and 29 and spent more than five hours a day connected to email.