Just like the primary telephone quantity, many Czechs nonetheless maintain their ICQ quantity of their head. The applying, which ended after 28 years, represented a small revolution in communication within the nation. Its customers might be in fixed contact with their mates on the pc and correspond with them late into the evening or compete within the catchy video games that the service included. Even when ICQ did not finish by itself, most individuals at the moment would like to not use it anyway.
ICQ was as soon as ubiquitous within the Czech Republic. In 2010, in response to the top of the corporate, Eliav Moshe, two million Czechs used it. They despatched two billion messages in a month. At the moment, the corporate concluded a strategic partnership with the corporate Centrum Holdings, which operated the search engine Centrum or Atlas and its personal media Aktuálně.cz. To this Moshe offered unique interviewthe place he additionally evaluated the state of affairs on the Czech market.
Studying his ideas at the moment, it is fascinating how historical past rhymes in one thing. Even then, journalist Adam Junek requested Moshe in regards to the damaging impression of social networks and whether or not we’re by chance shedding contact with actual folks by way of these companies.
“I do not suppose there’s any hazard of individuals closing themselves off within the digital world. For instance, our customers have solely a minimal of so-called cyber-friends – that’s, folks they solely meet on-line. Fairly, they use ICQ to rearrange an actual assembly,” answered Moshe 14 years in the past.
These phrases had been spoken at a time when the world and the Czech Republic weren’t almost so related. In accordance with the Czech Statistical Workplace, solely 4 p.c of individuals over the age of 16 related to the Web by way of cell phone in 2010. In 2019, it was already two thirds.
Most individuals used to see a notification a few newly despatched message solely on their desktop pc or laptop computer, whereas now it is the opposite manner round and many individuals use messengers primarily on smartphones, the place they’ve turn out to be an affordable and safer various to basic SMS.
Because of the alliance with Centrum Holdings, ICQ might be pleased with the official Czech localization, which undoubtedly helped within the fairly sharp competitors that got here at ICQ from all sides. Fb, for instance, entered the scene on the time of the discharge of the seventh model of ICQ, which later dethroned the favored service. In 2012, TV Nova took over the partnership from Centrum Holdings and promoted the service itself, together with a particular web site for the Czech viewers.
Czech anomaly
From a Czech perspective, it could appear that ICQ was a very international participant, as each good friend within the neighborhood had it. The truth, nevertheless, is that almost all of customers got here from the international locations of the previous Japanese bloc and from Israel, the place the venture began in 1996. Russia and Ukraine had been essential markets for the corporate, additionally due to the dimensions of the populations of each international locations. Enlargement to the east into totalitarian China was additionally thought-about, however there the corporate bumped into insurmountable obstacles from the authorities.
In 2010, when the top of ICQ spoke to Aktuálně.cz about increasing to the West, his service was not doing very effectively on the time and was progressively changed by different manufacturers, resembling Skype and WhatsApp, that are nonetheless standard at the moment.
Within the Czech Republic at the moment, Fb was additionally rising quickly, by way of which you can write with mates like on ICQ, but it surely included a complete vary of further features. As an alternative of a messenger window and a contact database, the person turned a Fb wall with galleries and timeless posts from mates, which might be rewarded with the Like button. ICQ in model 7 tried to adapt to this by providing communication with different platforms, together with Fb, however the firm didn’t reverse the damaging development.
Fb additionally, in contrast to ICQ, solely had a worldwide recreation hit within the type of FarmVille, the place folks may work together with mates to enhance their very own farm. The browser recreation itself couldn’t be chargeable for the downfall of the favored messenger within the Czech Republic, however this story illustrates the development of the place social networks, which ICQ was additionally thought-about to be, have gone. Briefly, the unique Israeli startup was considerably profitable, but it surely wasn’t the hit that might affect international popular culture like Mark Zuckerberg’s app did.
Within the US, however, throughout the warfare of messengers, the corporate AOL and its “shithole” AIM dominated for a very long time. Though it got here a few 12 months later than ICQ, it managed to determine itself in a short time on the home American market. As is commonly the case with know-how, succeeding within the US is a vital purpose, and the workforce from Israel was at an obstacle on this mission in comparison with homegrown participant AOL.
Russian hazard
One other essential position was performed by the truth that two years after the launch of ICQ, it was purchased by the American AOL to promote it to the Russian firm Digital Sky Applied sciences in 2010. In the present day, it’s a part of the Mail.ru Group, one of many dominant know-how teams in Russia, which may be very intently related to the Kremlin. For instance, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko issued a decree in 2017 banning the companies of this firm on Ukrainian territory.
If ICQ had been nonetheless one of many dominant communication companies within the Czech Republic at the moment, it might most likely be mentioned, just like TikTok, whether or not the Russian Federation doesn’t have entry to delicate conversations and information. Considerations will surely be justified, as a result of six years in the past the server Novaya Gazeta described that the Russian secret companies had entry to the correspondence of ICQ customers. This was found by journalists analyzing judgments the place guilt was selected the premise of correspondence from ICQ, which the investigators obtained from the suspect even earlier than the pc or cell phone was confiscated.
The final tremor occurred 4 years in the past, when Mail.ru launched a brand new ICQ shopper with the subtitle New. A 12 months later, an surprising wave of curiosity arose in regards to the software in response to adjustments within the privateness coverage of the rival messenger WhatsApp. The variety of downloads of the appliance multiplied a number of occasions, however the wave subsided fairly rapidly, which was simply one other step in the direction of the entire shutdown of the service.
