I remember the IRC/ICQ days when you could actually meet real people online and have interesting discussions with them. The “Free for Chat” status message on ICQ and the “Find someone to chat” connected me with some people that I am still friends with.
When MSN Messenger came out, I remember installing it and being impressed at how light, clean and fun it was. I loved the design, I loved the sounds and I absolutely loved that I could see when my friend was typing a message. A first time feature then, I remember very clearly how dead my conversations on Yahoo Messenger felt in comparison as I could never tell when someone was done speaking, or was just typing a long sentence. ICQ had a plugin which would let me see my friends type in real time – with their typos, backspaces etc. I think that was too much of an overkill.
I remember how I ended up having my closest friends on MSN messenger as it just felt a lot more intimate and personal.
Well, that was 1999 and it is 2009 already. My entire internet life is covered in those 10 years and Windows Live Messenger (as it is now called) just turned 10.
Lonn made an excellent, funny video for the event and it makes me smile each time I see it.
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