Why Is ICQ The Chat Client Of Choice For The Industry?

[Lee]

When there are many other comparable (and sometimes more reliable) instant messenger programs available?

Who was it that decided ICQ should be the program of choice over the others?

Regards,

Lee

[gaystoryman]

The consumer for some reason or other made that decision. I wish that it wasn't so, though at the beginning, before it was bought out by AOL, it was a darn site better than AIM or MSN Messenger.

Even now it is better than GTalk, which isn't saying much.

I hate ICQ but as that seems to be the one people use, if you want to do business, not much choice is there but to use it.

my mini rant :thumbsup:

[DEVELISH]

I'm using TrillanPro (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com) - I ain't caring what messenger people use - I use them all

DEV...

[Fister]

I suspect ICQ has preeminence because it was the first messenger to get a critical mass of users. Inertia now keeps that as the messenger of choice.

[Chilihost]

It was the first, its basic, stable and a good business tool. I tried using MSN once and found it was too much like a toy, with friends sending me all these animated pics and gifs and I found it was just a waste of time.

I also like skype - I have a skype phone (non-video) that I use all the time. Once again, it was the first, its basic, stable and a good business tool.

[Kushiel]

I'm using TrillanPro (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com) - I ain't caring what messenger people use - I use them all

DEV...

I've actually had a great deal of trouble with Trillian over the years - I think it just doesn't agree with some things in windows. Pidgin (Previously GAIM before the infringement case by AIM) does wonderfully for me, though. I have accounts for and access to AIM, Yahoo, MSN, and ICQ. I have the ability to add accounts for:

Gadu-Gadu
Google Talk
GroupWise
IRC
Nullprpl
QQ
SILC
Simple
Sametime
XMPP

Most of which, I've never even heard of.
:jerkoff:

[IdolKnights]

because it was and is the first choice of programmers. Always has been.