Can you imagine your life without Facebook? It was only eight years ago when this brilliant website burst into our lives and changed our ways of communication forever. Before there was Facebook, we used instant messaging programs to chat online with one another, and one of the leading programs of such was the Israel-originated ICQ.
ICQ LLC was developed and popularized by the Israeli company, Mirabilis. It was released in November 1996, and became the first internet-wide instant messaging service. Later on, the company patented the technology. In 1998, AOL acquired Mirabilis for 287 million dollars in cash up front and 120 million dollars in additional payments. In 2001, ICQ has over 100 million accounts registered. Nine years later, in 2010, the program was sold to Digital Sky Technologies for 187.5 million dollars.