Facebook and Zuckerberg, you've finally done it: why I am leaving ICQ

I know I'm not the only one to spot major, problematic, and even disqualifying overreaches on the part of our social media companies in recent weeks.

There's only so much we should put up with from these powerful corporations upon whom we now rely in order to communicate with our friends and the world at large, be it Facebook, Inc.; Twitter, Inc; or indeed the Mirabilis Corporation.

Don't recognize the latter? That's the original company that created ICQ, though of course it was later purchased by AOL, with ownership subsequently falling into the hands of the Mail.Ru Group in 2010.

Mr. Zuckerberg's recent travails and the several subsequent highly publicized user departures from the Facebook platform show the tides are clearly shifting away from these social media powers.

But technology has greatly changed the world — once in a while for the better — and we shouldn't be that quick to leave these valuable tools behind.

That's why I am employing baby steps.

Last week, I made the difficult decision to step away from my Hotmail account. This week, the time has come for ICQ.

In this cold modern world, the denizens of the net are craving the personal touch, and I must admit I have always felt like I was just a number to ICQ.

I'm sure a lot of that feeling came from the fact that I was identified only by a number. That really probably was most of it. Mine was 386493823 and my friend Sam's was 4938483921, and we both felt like numbers. Yes, actually that must have been what did it entirely.

Yes, I saw the recent big speech by the CEO of ICQ on the Iowa Public Broadcasting Network (subscriber-only). I understand that he believes the time has come for ICQ to take the lead in the social media wars, given Facebook's recent trouble. He believes that with Facebook out of the picture, he's next in line.

Facebook isn't out of the picture, though.

And certainly this guy isn't next in line.

To that man and his grand dreams, I can only say the following: uh-oh!

Still, it was a good speech. And I wouldn't necessarily recommend that you leave ICQ, if it's what's right for you. In my experience, it didn't really take any of my information, because it didn't have the bandwidth to store it. It was very minimalist like MSN Messenger in this sense, though MSN did take your favourite song lyric of the moment, presumably sharing it to advertisers without your permission so they would bother you with your very favourite song in the world.

For me, though, it's still goodbye. I wish all the folks at ICQ well, if anyone still works there, as well as its users, of whom I only know myself and Andre from 9th grade.

Sorry, Andre.

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