ICQ

Once you were weaned off AOL, you still needed a reliable messenger to keep in touch with all your 133t friends and buddies, and back in the day, we didn’t have that newfangled skype software with its fancy video and voice chat, so if you wanted to send online messages, you used ICQ (I Seek You) and you got to toggle between instant message mode and live chat mode (where you could see what was being typed as it was typed). When you used ICQ, you didn’t get to login with some custom vanity screen name – you used your 9 to 14 digit assigned ICQ UIN#, and you liked it, because that’s how it was. ICQ is still around today, but it’s not a real popular choice these days, as it considered pretty bloated and is supported with adware. However, many early users still pop on from time to time to say a quick hello to all of their un-transitioned buddies and colleagues that never made the transition to other messaging software.