Read the history of instant messaging IM in one article

ICQ, the instant messaging software we are more familiar with, appeared in 1996 and is considered one of the earliest instant messaging software. However, as early as 1990, the term "instant messaging (IM)" had already entered people's field of vision.

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Original IM

The history of instant messaging can be traced back to 1960.

Before 1960, computers were still in the batch processing era. The so-called batch processing refers to loading user programs and data into cassettes or tapes in advance, and having the computer read them in a certain order so that the programs and data to be executed by the user can be processed in batches together.

At that time, such computers were large, expensive, and complicated to operate. Such devices could not be popularized, and it was impossible to write instant messaging tools, and there was no demand for instant messaging among users.

It was not until 1960 that the advent of the time-sharing system broke the deadlock.

A time-sharing system refers to multiple terminals connected to the same computer, allowing multiple users to use a computer system at the same time, greatly improving the availability of the computer.

Because multiple users are allowed to use a computer at the same time, there is a need for communication between these users, such as notifying other users to print data, etc., and the prototype of instant messaging began to emerge.

Later, some operating systems also allowed users using the same computer to send and communicate messages to each other in text format, such as the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), which allowed up to 30 people to communicate at the time.

The birth of the first instant messaging

With the development of the Internet, people are in urgent need of an online chat system to solve some problems encountered at work.

In 1973, Doug Brown and David R. Woolley created Talkomatic, the world's first instant messaging system, based on the Plato system at the University of Illinois.

Talkomatic provided six channels, each allowing up to five users to chat online. Later, this system was applied to the world's first online forum PLATO Notes. It was not until the 1980s that this forum gradually disappeared from people's sight.

Talkomatic's message sending method is different from today's instant messaging software such as QQ and WeChat. When we use WeChat to communicate, we need to type out the text message first, and then click the "Send" button before the other party can see the message. However, Talkomatic is real-time, and the receiver can receive every word typed by the sender immediately.

You might think that something this old should have disappeared long ago? However, even such an ancient thing released its fourth version in 2018 to support more types of modern browsers and display resolutions...

The emergence of commercial IM

With the development of the Internet, instant messaging software began to appear. Among them, ICQ, developed by three Israeli youths, is the most famous and is the world's first instant messaging software.

Once ICQ was launched, it became the instant messaging software with the largest number of users in the world at that time in just 6 months. Even in Asia where the Internet was relatively underdeveloped at that time, its market share exceeded 70%.

In 1998, ICQ had 12 million users and was acquired by AOL for $287 million. Almost at the same time, Ma Huateng, who was in China, saw the huge commercial value of instant messaging and changed his main business of building an online paging system for paging stations to developing an instant messaging tool - OICQ.

Just when OICQ was sweeping the Chinese instant messaging market, ICQ's parent company America Online sued Tencent for infringement, which led to the famous Tencent QQ.

In 2003, the two giants in China's instant messaging field, Microsoft and Tencent, successively launched MSN and QQ2003, and the two started a fierce competition. However, due to MSN's global strategic positioning, it was quickly defeated by the localized QQ and withdrew from the Chinese market in 2014.

Nowadays, the functions of instant messaging are becoming more and more abundant. In addition to text chat, it can also send emoticons, transfer files, and chat by voice and video, which greatly meets people's social needs. Although WeChat and QQ occupy a large market share of instant messaging software, we can see the shadow of instant messaging in various industries such as games, e-commerce, and finance. It has become an indispensable part of our daily life.