Oh no, it looks like MSN/Live Messenger is now the most popular instant messaging platform in the world. I remember when I first used instant messenging, it was the famous ICQ. And it was during the time of dial-up! And during those time, the power of being able to write a message and have it delivered instantly was, well, cool. It’s just like chating where replies can be received instantly as well. And when ICQ introduced file delivery, I was stunned by it’s usefulness as well. But somehow along the way, ICQ fell out of favour. A lot of people started using MSN Messenger which came bundled with their Microsoft Operating System. They were just too lazy to download and install the ICQ software, thus MSN Messenger grew in popularity, just like Internet Explorer.

But luckily, unlike Internet Explorer, which remained stagant for a long time without any additional features or upgrades, MSN continued to evolve. When Skype came out and proved that audio and video messenging is workable and with broadband becoming more popular, MSN also started to add these features into their messenger. And not surprising, it became even more popular with the younger generation. Old folks like us still have our ICQ account.

A lot of users didn’t realize that compared to ICQ, MSN Messenger lacked a lot of features previously. Only recently did they started adding powerful features like offline messenging, file sharing and whiteboard sharing to their communication software. And competition like GoogleTalk and Yahoo! Pager were no fight at all. Although their software were capable instant messaging platforms, they don’t stand out against the ever so popular MSN Messenger and nobody saw the need for change, especially for the newer generation. Too bad, I would go for ICQ over MSN Messenger anytime but if you use ICQ and you are alone, you might as well don’t use Instant Messaging.