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.

    • umbrella@lemmy.mlEnglish
      20·
      8 hours ago

      remember trillian? or pidgin was it called? you could message every service.

      that was badass.

      • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        6 hours ago

        I actually forgot all about that, but yes I did use Trillian at one point. Can you imagine big tech companies letting you use third party apps that didn’t lock you into their service or ad stream these days?

      • Orbituary@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23·
        7 hours ago

        Both. Trillian was not Mac only (I made a mistake from memory), Pidgin was multi platform but started on Linux. Pidgin had every protocol. I still keep my .purple config folder and logs after over a decade. Not like I’ll ever read the logs again, though.

        Edit: Guys, relax. I made a mistake recounting from memory. I didn’t run Windows back then. I assumed that because of the native Aqua interface, there wasn’t a Windows port.

        • i_dont_want_to@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          5·
          7 hours ago

          I remember having Trillian on Windows way back when.

          I’ll have you know I did go back and read my logs from like 2008. I think I cringed so hard I never recovered. You might have saved yourself by not looking at yours!

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          7 hours ago

          Trillian was not Mac only. I’ve never owned a Mac and used Trillian almost exclusively from 2002 until roughly 2009?? I can’t remember when the transition from IM to texting happened for me, but it was around then. When I was running Linux at home I would use Gaim, which was developed by a friend of the main Trillian guy.