"Instant messaging clients have been growing ever more popular with Web users for more than a decade now. In terms of modern IM clients, ICQ kicked off the party with in 1996 and AOL Instant Messenger followed soon after.
Both Yahoo and Microsoft soon got into the act with Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger, respectively, and users eventually gravitated to the network of their choice, based on whatever client their friends were using.
It was only in this millennium that a multinetwork protocol allowed software like Trillian, Miranda, and Gaim (now known as Pidgin) to connect to multiple IM networks..."
*www.download.com/8301-2007_4-9715258-12.html?tag=nl.e415
Both Yahoo and Microsoft soon got into the act with Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger, respectively, and users eventually gravitated to the network of their choice, based on whatever client their friends were using.
It was only in this millennium that a multinetwork protocol allowed software like Trillian, Miranda, and Gaim (now known as Pidgin) to connect to multiple IM networks..."
*www.download.com/8301-2007_4-9715258-12.html?tag=nl.e415
...But Stopped using IM wayyyy..Back