Over the weekend, it was announced that ICQ, one of the early pioneers of social online messaging platforms will be shutting down soon. The official ICQ website didn't offer much explanation, as it simply stated "ICQ will stop working from June 26".
In addition, ICQ also said that those still using the platform can move on to VK Messenger or VK WorkSpace with colleagues. For the uninitiated, VK is a Russian company that used to be known as Mail.Ru Group and the company has its own social messaging services. VK acquired ICQ from AOL and was developed by Mirabilis, an Israeli company back then.
For those who are too young, ICQ was the to-go social messaging platform back in the early 2000s, alongside mIRC. During that era, ICQ reached 100 million registered accounts but it eventually got overtaken by other early social messaging services such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and AIM.
Despite fading away, the "Uh-oh!" notification sound on ICQ remains one of the most iconic sounds on the internet during the millennium. Well, goodbye ICQ, it was good knowing you.
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