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.
I think that’s what the college kids were playing with when I was in high school.
Started college in 1995, and I indeed did have ICQ before too long. Still remember my number (6725571).
You probably had all three installed on your computer and probably all running at once.
I remember using a program called Trillian (which is still around!) in the late 90s/early 00s. It allowed you to connect multiple IM accounts in one app. It was sorta finicky, but it got the job done.
I haven’t thought of those apps for years, I used Pidgin! I had to look up the program name.
I still use Pidgin, because I still have some old work related contacts who use Skype, and I’d much rather use Pidgin than keep Skype around. It will do discord too but it’s a bit kludgey.
It will do discord? That’s amazing, I will have to look back into it. Discord has been awful for a while, but getting people to switch is impossible. 😩
