If you have been following new Internet software fairly closely, then you probably have heard about ICQ - which is supposed to sound like I Seek You.
ICQ has taken many parts of the Internet community by storm. The idea is simple. Using ICQ you can keep track of friends and contacts.
ICQ beeps your friends when you come on-line, then lets you communicate through messages similar to e-mails, or by real-time chat similar to the 'talk' under the old Unix text systems popular on the Internet five to 10 years ago.
ICQ has proven so popular that 17 million people had subscribed as of the end of August. More than four million were using the service each day, and a peak of 600,000 were using it at the same time on September 1.
Many users are now including ICQ identification number on business cards and at the bottom of e-mail messages.
So, what makes this product so popular? These are some of the features: On-line alert. Any ICQ contact can be tracked so that when they come on-line, the software pops up a notification message.