It was the late 90s, social media platforms like Facebook didn't yet exist, texting was in its infancy, email was very popular, instant messaging was up for...

The bottom of the article links to the history (individual features) of other IM programs from that era as well like ICQ and Yahoo Messenger.

  • fahfahfahfahAEnglish
    17·
    4 hours ago

    The one thing these messengers had over texts was presence notifications. I remember jumping through hoops to get aim working on my Motorola v188 so that I could be notified every time my crush came online and I could send her a “hey what’s going on”… only for it to be ignored.