[alaskamiller]

To contextualize requires relativity.

ICQ in 1999 had about 45 million users. There were only 248 million internet users back in 1999. That's 18% of mostly international users.

AOL was optimistic. So much so this is the actual response when they beat the street during their earning reports.

"(ICQ is) growing like a weed," said AOL President Bob Pittman. "Monetizing it" will be "relatively easy," he added.

WhatsApp has 450 million users where there are 2.7 billion internet users. 16%. Of mostly international users. Where, again, monetizing it, should be relatively easy.

But then again, why does any of this matter?

Genie's out of the bottle. The game has changed. We're playing a game of scaling now. Less than a hundred dedicated folks can change the world.

That 19 billion is a clarion call to attract even more people to what it is most of us here have been doing for decades.

If there is to be a singularity moment for the generation that grew up remembering the difference between real life and internet life, we have arrived at the internet life.

10593577

[yarone]

I win with 104006.

Was offered job as employee #1. Didn't take the offer. I was 15 y/o.

[Kiro]

Are you serious?

[yarone]

Yes. Met Yair and Sefi (two of tech founders) via my uncle who was doing biz Dev for them. I was writing a shareware win32 app at the time called "AoLOL!", an add on for AOL 2.5 and up that would extend the AOL toolbar and add a bunch of features. One of those features was called "keep in touch". You could specify a list of AOl screen names and it would run through that list and perform AOL'd "check if online" function. It would tell you if your friends are online and of so, what chat room they're in (if any). A precursor to the "buddy list."

The icq guys are Israeli. My parents are Israeli. I spoke Hebrew fluently. I helped them fix the broken English on their web site. Later I gave them access to my AOL account so they could take a close look at AOL's buddy list when it did launch.

They also offered me UIN (the icq #) "007". I laughed it off, didn't even know at the time what 007 meant.

Always wondered what would have been if I was a few years older, not living with my parents, able to drive, and would have taken their offer seriously. To me they really kicked off the dotcom boom and for me, my focus in startups.

[skrebbel]

It surprises you? Pretty big chance that a programmer once offered an ICQ job is on HN these days and would comment in a thread about the Mirabilis purchase.

[Kiro]

No, not that surprising but I want to know more. It just sounded so casual.

[nerfhammer]

I want to believe. But a smaller amount of people making exponentially greater returns means luck is the new god.

[gingerlime]

ICQ was revolutionary at the time. Both in terms of early-game instant messaging, and the deal these guys struck with AOL. I remember everybody talking about it in Israel at the time. (iirc) Four founders in their early twenties each making around $40mil was quite a shock.

Even though it's a bit sad to see things didn't really evolve much since then, the bubble bursted a little later, and those kind of eyeballs-based "business-models" collapsed. I wonder if these kind of deals are the canary of another bubble bursting?

136093

[codezero]

This is key. People seem to forget that 15 years ago the Internet was new and not many people used it or had access to it.

I imagine that in 15 years (fingers crossed) we'll reflect the same situation where we assume everyone has access to the Internet and not just several billion people :)

[Implicated]

10554049

how do I remember that?

[drunkenfly]

207432 :) It got stolen a while ago, when I already stopped using icq.

[Karunamon]

28648600

I have no idea, but it's still stuck in my mind to this day!

[89vision]

2476319

[josefresco]

2412581 use it everyday with my wife and a couple holdout geeks.

[s0rce]

15254346

[batpad]

17876045

[PakG1]

Screw all you guys and your good memories, why can't I remember mine? :P

[mseebach]

I remember when switching from ICQ to Microsoft Messenger thinking "good riddance". Messenger employed the not the least bit novel approach of letting users sign in using a self selected textual screen name.

[jmreid]

I can't believe I can remember mine as well (10407923). I don't even remember my old phone number that I had at the time, or the address of where I lived!

[alatkins]

Latecomer!

3743309

[garfij]

noob. 3110674