Mail.ru Group announced its intention to rebrand and restart the once extremely popular ICQ messenger.
It is reported that the new version of the messenger will have the function of video calls and support group communication. Declared support for voice and video conferencing, which will be able to participate up to 30 people at the same time.
The latter will allow using the messenger to solve various business issues. The demand for group communication has especially increased recently, against the backdrop of a significantly increased number of users working from home. So, according to the App Annie service, the demand for such applications in March increased immediately by 90%, compared to the same period in 2019.
Also, Mail.ru Group stated that in ICQ New artificial intelligence technologies will be involved, thanks to which it will be possible to quickly recognize voice messages. And a platform for creating bots is also promised. To get new features, the user will not need to install a new application, it will be enough just to update the existing one.
The ICQ application was launched in 1996 by the Israeli company Mirabilis and immediately became very popular, in fact, thanks to it, the very idea of communication on the Internet was completely rethought. In 1998, the messenger was taken over by the American company AOL, and since 2010 it has been owned by the Mail.ru Group.
Once extremely popular, this messenger today is significantly inferior in terms of the number of users to competitors like Telegram, Viber, etc. And it is difficult to say how much the rebranding will help raise the popularity of ICQ. Doubts are already being expressed on the Internet about this.
