In honor of AIM, one of the oldest messaging platforms that is shutting down after 20 years of service, it's reminded me of other platforms that have gone away but were very popular at its peak: ICQ, MSN Messenger, mIRC, among others.
Messaging and social apps are more popular than ever, seeing tremendous growth and evolution in the last half decade. With dominant platforms – depending on where you live and the purpose of communication – that could be WhatsApp, Skype, Viber, Instagram, Line, Snapchat, Facebook (or their own Messenger), Slack, and the list goes on.
In this weekend's open forum, tell us what chat platform you remember being your first widely used platform and what do you use today for messaging and keeping in touch with friends and what else do you use (if any) for work related communication?