[micah63]

My take on it is that when MSN Messenger came out, they stored the contacts "in the cloud" (which was a new concept back then). So let's just say hypothetically that Windows 95 crapped the bed with a true blue screen of death, you'd re-install MSN Messenger and bam, your contacts were back. ICQ kept contacts local and if you lost them, you lost them.

[ianbooker]

True, but they caught up within one year and had the feature. Then they heavily bloated the client, then released a "lite" version which really brought them back on the map. Then facebook came and suddenly it was cooler to communicate non-instantly for some time. :)

[outworlder]

> it was cooler

Cooler for some. Infuriating for others.

Do you remember that feature that you could use to "call someone's attention"? It would make a lot of noise and the window would shake like crazy in your face.

Found it. The "nudge" feature.

https://youtu.be/9QrS2cEyNrA?t=70

[zerd]

You could also invite anyone to a group chat, forcing them to join, and then you could nudge all of them at the same time. Best feature ever.

[easytiger]

Yea, but that was a time when most people worked on desktops. Had no mobile phone or laptop.

[artificial]

That brings back memories, nudge bombing via client side automation / progs.

[aeyes]

ICQ had a powerful global search, you could search by nickname, real name, country, city, date of birth and so on.

Back in the day nicknames were still pretty unique.

[op03]

Also had a search by interest feature if I remember right.

There were no programming classes back then at my school and I found someone, half way across the world, who patiently taught me programming everyday.

[rasz]

IT was great for dating around 2000. Search by gender, age, city, open conversation and try my luck. Ended up in ~4 year long relationship from random contacts.