[strahil]

Makes you question what failure is. IRC played an extremely important role in spreading computer science knowledge, bootstrapping what we take today as a granted IT world. It helped build communities for the introverts, with various clients introducing basic scripting and programming technique to the curious minded. For me IRC played an irreplaceable role in my life as a developer and I would never be where I am if it wasn't for the networks built on that protocol. I think that IRC never failed, it was just outgrown.

[Thriptic]

Also it had an enormous impact on early online gaming. IRC was the default way many clans assembled, communicated, recruited, and coordinated match play and scrimmages between each other. Channels like findscrim allowed CS teams to match with other parties of equivalent skill looking for scrimmages in real time all over the world, 24 hours per day.

[johnisgood]

Indeed, I remember when we wrote an IRC bot for organizing scrims, and it would also keep a history of the results and so forth. Fun times. I miss it. :)