ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, created by Mirabilis, an Israeli start-up company based in Tel-Aviv. The program was first released in November, 1996. The name ICQ is a play on the phrase "I seek you".
ICQ allows the sending of text message with offline support, URLs, multi-user character-by-character chats, resumable file transfers, SMSes, greeting cards and more. Other features included a searchable user directory and POP3 email support. Even though such features were made available since around 2000, many of the main competitors such as AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger have failed to implement such power-user oriented features even to this day. Instead, they have gone towards the route of targeting the younger users by overloading with colors, avatars and animations.
