AOL sell ICQ to DST (Russia)

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/aol-to-sell-icq-service-to-d-s-t-for-187-5-million/

by Uncle_Sam • 16 years ago

27 27 16 years ago

dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com

j_baker2• 16 years ago

I think this title should win an award for most three letter acronyms in an HN title. :-)

powrtoch• 16 years ago

TLA is our DNA.

josefresco• 16 years ago

Still run ICQ+Pidgin+OTR daily. And while I don't have the coveted 6 digit ICQ UIN I got a 7 digit so that makes me old.

I wonder if this will increase or decrease the amount of Russian spam I receive through the service. I know some who get bombarded daily.

ruslan2• 16 years ago

ICQ/OSCAR protocol is totally insecure in essence, any attempt to fight spam on ICQ network is futile. It's kind of same as with email/SMTP.

rit2• 16 years ago

I still have one but I never actually log in - got the 6 digit even (#924218). I didn't realize it was an active, viable service still. At least at a level of independent value that makes it worth selling off.

jetsnoc• 16 years ago

I'm #575061. We are the ones in the first million, huh!

It's impressive how quickly a company can lose such an impressive market share.

henrikschroder• 16 years ago

I have a 6-digit UIN, and I get bombarded daily with russian spam.

Then again, I almost never talk to someone over ICQ so I could just shut it down, but then again I'm running Miranda so one more protocol doesn't bother me much.

defenestrator• 16 years ago

I too have a 6 digit UID as well - We need some sort of automated whitelisting b/c the spam is just idiotic.

raquo3• 16 years ago

Tip: Setting Falkland Islands as my location and clearing age and gender helped me get about 95% less spam in Skype. (On ICQ the decrease in spam was noticable, but not so big).

ruslan2• 16 years ago

There's a great and unstoppable tendency in Russia to switch to Jabber, so I wonder why would someone want to invest huge pile of money into almost dead service based on a centuary old technology? Either investors are dumb or there's some grassroot movement involved.

jonknee• 16 years ago

I knew ICQ was old, but century old technology? Unless it started out as a telegraph service I think you're confused.

j_baker2• 16 years ago

I think he/she was exaggerating.

dhyasama• 16 years ago

I'd guess the latter as DST doesn't seem to be dumb. They are heavily invested in Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and others. DST investors include Goldman Sachs and Tencent. They have been doing a lot of deals lately partly because they offer cash and will purchase employee stock. Both are nice when IPOs are so rare.

dchest• 16 years ago

There's a great and unstoppable tendency in Russia to switch to Jabber

Are you use you're not talking about geeks having an unstoppable tendency in Russia to switch to Jabber? Isn't the second most popular IM Mail.ru Agent, which is also owned by DST?

ugh• 16 years ago

Everyone I know uses ICQ. (I’m in Germany.) They might also use Skype but that is by no means a given. It’s a truly dreadful situation. I wish it were different but it isn’t.

zavulon2• 16 years ago

Uh, really? NOBODY I know in Russia/former Soviet Union uses Jabber. Everybody uses ICQ and some use Skype.

jsn• 16 years ago

Ya, really. I'm in Russia, I'm on jabber since forever, ditched ICQ completely 2 or 3 years ago -- I just don't need it anymore, almost everybody I know is on jabber already.

(admittedly, quitting Skype is noticeably harder).

raquo3• 16 years ago

It may be unstoppable in the long run but it's far from prevailing. ICQ is in no danger of extinction in the coming 5-7 years for sure, especially with parters like Yandex and Rambler. And, well, network effects, you know. Most normal* web-connected people use it in Russia, as you know.

* normal means not IT people

c00p3r3• 16 years ago

Oh, it is a true Russian way of investment - we have money, everything else does not matter.

AOL should be very happy (and surprised) to get rid of that old crap.

zavulon2• 16 years ago

It's not crap. It's the most popular IM service in Russia and a whole bunch of other countries. I use it daily to talk to friends and business colleagues in Europe, and ICQ is the only service they use (although more technologically-oriented use Skype)

c00p3r3• 16 years ago

When a lot of people are using something it does not prove that it is not a crap.

PHP is the best example. =)

bgovern• 16 years ago

Since from what I can tell, the biggest user group of the ICQ service is Russian hackers, the sale is only logical.

listic• 16 years ago

Why hackers? Just Russians. ICQ is very popular in Russia for whatever historical reason.

TheBranca18• 16 years ago

AOL -> ICQ -> AIM/Yahoo -> Gaim -> Pidgin

It's amazing how little things have changed on the instant messenger side since I started using AIM.

I will forever associate ICQ with that silly Uh Oh! sound when you received a message.

AOL sell ICQ to DST (Russia)

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