this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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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.

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[–] korthrun@lemmy.sdf.org 249 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Microsoft pivoted to Skype. Saved you a click and reading about 1000 words.

[–] orclev@lemmy.world 49 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Which Microsoft then shit all over (to be fair, Skype started that process even before MS bought them) and eventually renamed it to Microsoft Teams.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 38 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

And for a while, there was also Skype for Business (formerly Lync (formerly Communicator)).

[–] orclev@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah that was part of the brand reshuffling they did to obfuscate things. Lync was their shitty chat app they tried to convince businesses to use that everyone hated. They bought Skype, renamed it to Microsoft Teams, renamed Lync to Skype for Business, and killed MSN Messenger. When people still didn't want to use ~~Lync~~Skype for Business, then they killed that as well, and now it's just MS Teams.

[–] caoimhinr@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Fun fact any developer working with the api can tell you, there is a clear distinction between de voip bit and the meeting/chat bit. They haven't bothered rewriting or integrating it in any way so the Skype for business backend is still very much alive.

[–] greybeard@lemmy.one 21 points 2 weeks ago

Another fun fact: On the backend, Teams uses SharePoint to store files, and Exchange to store message. The whole M365 stack is a house of cards built on ancient tech. It's a wonder it works at all.

[–] ShunkW@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

Lync was such garbage. I used that for years at one of my old jobs. Teams just feels like discord with extra shittiness lol.

The worst part is that they had developed an in-house app that worked amazing but abandoned it for teams.

[–] HeyJoe@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

Still remember setting up lync 2013 for our company. It was one of the funner projects I remember doing. I was not as thrilled about setting up SharePoint 2013....

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[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I have use teams at work and I hate it.

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[–] auzy@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago

Yep. I hate clickbait. You're a legend

[–] uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 51 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

I'm surprised no one mentioned Facebook.

I recall using MSN as far as in to 2009, but the friends I was connected with migrated to Facebook when their chat feature rolled out.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago

I recall using MSN as far as in to 2009, but the friends I was connected with migrated to Facebook when their chat feature rolled out.

another reason to hate facebook

[–] blackn1ght 12 points 3 weeks ago

Same, it was pretty much an instant change too. Which sucked as Facebook chat was very unreliable at the time and obviously not very feature rich.

[–] kevindqc@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

The article touches on that

The advent of social media and mobile devices couldn't be ignored either. These technologies were enabling new ways for people to stay in touch with friends and family that didn't involve a traditional computer.

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[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 47 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Anyone remember the short-lived Great War of the Messenger Apps? For a few months back around... '98? '99? MSN tried really hard to shoehorn its way into working with AIM. About every day there would be an update from MSM Messenger to allow it to work with AIM. Then AOL would fuck with their own protocol to ice out MSN users again.

I think these shenanigans also impacted the Trillium Messenger app too, which up until then had been flying under the radar of messenger interoperability.

I might be getting some of these details wrong.

[–] tias@discuss.tchncs.de 37 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

And then Jabber came to fix it by introducing an open protocol, and Google started supporting it, and all was well. But when everybody was using Google Chat they severed the Jabber compatibility, locking everyone in to their platform. Now we're back wading around in enshittified shit and Jabber is dead.

[–] TarantulaFudge@startrek.website 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Support matrix!! It already has international support, just needs to be a bit better with stickers and qol stuff. I've been using it for years. It's nice to know I don't have to worry about my privacy at all with chat rooms that can continue on without the original server.

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[–] ShunkW@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I used that until they pay walled it. Then I found Pidgen I believe it was called. It was open source and could connect to pretty much every messenger and IRC and stuff. Then my friend just switched to texting lol

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 13 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Pidgin. Before that it was called Gaim.
It still works, as there are plugins to integrate it with almost everything.

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[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 9 points 2 weeks ago

Trillium

Trillian, not trillium. And they're actually still around.

[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

Trillian was definitely part of that war. I remember the daily patches to get things working again.

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 37 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I might have been 10 minutes too young for ICQ. I think that's what the college kids were playing with when I was in high school. For my cohort it was the big three: MSN, Yahoo! and AIM. You probably had all three installed on your computer and probably all running at once. They're probably why my entire generation can touch type. Vital tool for teenage social life at the turn of the century.

This was Microsoft's era, too. The main reason Apple survived the 90's was because Microsoft invested in them to counter anti-trust allegations. They paid Apple to keep existing so they couldn't be called a monopoly. Internet Explorer was the web browser, any others in use were a rounding error. No one had a Mac, a few people were still clinging to their Amigas. THE platform for personal/home computing and internet access was a Pentium PC with Windows ME or XP, which came with MSN Messenger out of the box.

Two things happened nearly simultaneously: Facebook Messenger and the iPhone. Graduating high school in 2005, your freshman year of college you probably started hearing about the cool new site that's kinda like MySpace except it's only for college kids. By your junior year all your new college friends were on Facebook and all your old high school friends that never logged on let alone talk to you were on MSN. And if you graduated in 2005, your junior year was in 2007, the year the iPhone was launched. MSN Messenger had been present as baked in "functions" of certain media phones at the time, but I don't think they ever made it to the App Store or even the Play Store on Android. Facebook was fast to adopt mobile apps, and for awhile there it was the one messenger service that interoperated between desktop on a web browser and smart phones across platforms. SMS didn't run on the desktop, iMessage is Apple-only, AIM, MSN and Yahoo were nowhere to be found and Telegram, Signal, Discord etc. weren't around yet. So everyone standardized on Facebook Messenger.

Meanwhile, Microsoft bought and ruined Skype.

[–] radicalautonomy@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] XaiwahBlue@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

I haven't thought of those apps for years, I used Pidgin! I had to look up the program name.

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[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 6 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

As a diehard Netscape Navigator user, I scoff at your browser choice.

The running joke in my day was everyone used Internet Explorer... to download Netscape.

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[–] Jackthelad@lemmy.world 28 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] blackn1ght 10 points 3 weeks ago

It was awesome. Especially paired with the msn messenger plus mod.

Near the end of its time and also when WiFi was taking off, I had friends with everyone in a uni house, but their WiFi was quite unreliable, so every hour or so I'd get 6 "person is online" pop up toasts appear simultaneously, stacked up on top of each other.

[–] moonbunny@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Microsoft Teams is sorta like the all grown up version of MSN, with the colour drained from it and “fun” features out of the box feeling dead on the inside

Just like a real adult human

[–] CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It was very popular within my friends up until the skype merger. At that point they went "i aint usin skype lmao"

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[–] CrunkBy@lemmy.world 20 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

well, the same as the others really: Time.

I think once SMS and phone apps became the norm over having Messenger apps on our Desktops all the time, that was pretty much it for these applications over all. It was a long, slow death. But MSN was one of the firsts to call it quits if I recall right. Oddly the IM app I liked the most. It's just not many of my friends used it. They were all AIM/AOL users.

[–] fahfahfahfah@lemmy.billiam.net 22 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

The one thing these messengers had over texts was presence notifications. I remember jumping through hoops to get aim working on my Motorola v188 so that I could be notified every time my crush came online and I could send her a “hey what’s going on”… only for it to be ignored.

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I miss Adium, I used it for a bunch of protocols, and I customized the CSS/html to make it look really awesome.

I had an app called snakeskin or something to skin my Mac OS X to be dark themed.

[–] EleventhHour@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Wow, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.

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[–] orbital@infosec.pub 16 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

I never knew anybody who used it. I had one contact on ICQ. Everybody else used AIM.

[–] infeeeee@lemm.ee 35 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I was in highschool in the 2000s in Europe, and msn was our default way of communication with classmates.

[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yep, early 2000s in the UK and everyone was using MSN. I didn’t know a single person using AIM or ICQ!

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[–] Baggie@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 weeks ago

Ditto for us in Australia

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Remember when icq could message aim users though? That was so badass.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 21 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

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

that was badass.

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[–] blackn1ght 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I think this is another one of those cases where the US does something different to the rest of the world: the majority of people were using msn messenger but the US was using aim.

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[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 11 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
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[–] Oaksey@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

Messenger-> Office Communicator -> Lync -> Skype for Business -> Teams. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_for_Business

[–] tehn00bi@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

That’s ok, we have teams now

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

give me back messenger. at least it was a cohesive usable app.

teams is just a low budget email emulation machine that still fails to deliver a functioning inbox, much like outlook.

I'd rather drag my dick through HIV riddled discord memes then use that rotting pile of shit called teams.

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[–] dumbass@leminal.space 6 points 2 weeks ago
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