AOL to sell off ICQ

I don’t think there is a person on the net today who has been online for more that 10 or 15 years who doesn’t hold up their low number count ICQ ID as some sort of badge. While I can’t remember my ID number I do remember that it was one of the first programs I downloaded when I started using the web.

Well as being reported by Kara Swisher it seems that AOL has decided that the time has come to get rid of this once proud jewel that it paid $287 million in 1998. While ICQ may seem so old school in the day and age of social media, Twitter and Facebook it is still apparently profitable.

While ICQ may live in the shadow of Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo in the States it is a different matter in Europe where it is number one in Germany, Russia and Ukraine as well as Israel and other smaller countries.

Apparently it is due to interest in ICQ by two major non-US companies that has prompted AOL to hire Morgan Stanley and Allen & Co to handle any deals regard the possible sale of the company once AOL’s spin-off from TimeWarner.