Adult Industry Favorite ICQ Reportedly on the Sales Block
 

NEW YORK ? AOL is in talks to sell its ICQ business to Russia's Digital Sky Technologies in a deal that could be worth up to $300 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.
ICQ, which is the preferred instant-messenger service for the online adult business community and reportedly has 100 million accounts registered, was first developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis, which is now owned by AOL.

AOL purchased the company in 1998 for $407 million.

Digital Sky also is an investor in Facebook, having purchased $100 million in shares to boost its stake in the company to as much as 3.5 percent back in July.

The first version of the program was released in November 1996 and ICQ became one of the first services of its type. ICQ is a homophone for the phrase ?I seek you.?

ICQ, now at version 6.0, features include sending text messages, offline support, multi-user chats, free daily-limited SMS sending, resumable file transfers, greeting cards, multiplayer games and a searchable user directory.

News of the potential sale comes just five days after AOL completed its spinout from parent Time Warner.

http://www.xbiz.com/news/115676

sound like a good fit

1/2 the IMs I get on ICQ are in Russian anyway

almost 20 years later and it's worth 100 million $ less than what they paid.

gotta love aol/time-warner execs, what a business savvy bunch they are.

almost 20 years later and it's worth 100 million $ less than what they paid.

gotta love aol/time-warner execs, what a business savvy bunch they are.

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

depends on how much they made on the ads......

Amazing its worth 300m. Does anyone even use ICQ outside of the adult biz anymore?

founded in israel.

LOL the answer to that is a resounding NO! When i tell people in mainstream to get in touch with me via ICQ they usually laugh!

Mainstream is all skype and MSN or god forbid the evil telephone ;-)

eh? the current value would reflect any roi made.