In a city where old buildings are torn down and fashion trends turn around in a matter of weeks, Hongkongers are wallowing in nostalgia in an unlikely way: reliving online romances on ICQ.
ICQ or I Seek You was the pioneer of instant messaging in the 1990s. It was almost wiped off the map when MSN came to prominence, but a new release tailored for smartphones prompted a sudden revival in Hong Kong. It has been the city's top free app in Apple's App Store, a platform for downloading iPhone and iPad applications, over the past few days.
Logging in with an ICQ number and the old password, users are able to have virtual reunions with those they befriended a decade ago.
'Many female friends on my friend list are now married and have children,' a user approaching his 30s wrote on an online discussion forum.
Some simply cannot remember the internet friends they made and started conversations like this: 'Hello! I forgot your name. You are?'
Still, the software is winning praise as a collective memory of the past decade.
'The number of digits in an ICQ number is a symbol of status,' said Francis Fong Po-kiu, president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation.