How they tried to solve the problem of communication with the advent of networks
Messengers became massively used in the 1990s. However, the very concept of a large number of users communicating with each other using electronic devices connected in a unified network goes back to the mid-1960s. Yes, don’t be surprised: a near real-time data sharing system called Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) was created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) back in 1961.
In 1980, the Zephyr Notification Service and the so-called “Athena Project” was launched. It used Unix to handle user messages. Some scientific organizations in the US in the early “tenth” years of the 21st century were still using it for email and messaging.
How the landscape of communication programs is changing in the 1990s
The history of messengers as universal desktop applications rather than restricted-access systems begins in the 1990s. That’s when the Israeli company Mirabilis launched ICQ. The distinctive features of this program were multi-user chats, file transfer support, user base search and a number of other options that had not previously been available in messengers of the 1980s. AOL acquired Mirabilis and ICQ in 1998, and then resold the service to Digital Sky Technologies in 2010.
Own developments were presented in Yahoo (Yahoo! Messenger), Pidgin. Even Bill Gates’ company got involved in the game. MSN Messenger was introduced in 1999, and by 2009 it already had more than 330 million monthly active users.
The distinctive feature was multiprotocol and their development of their own platforms and chat rooms. However, there was a downside: if you wanted to migrate to another messenger, you couldn’t automatically synchronize your message history between devices.
What happens as internet speeds and mobile online access evolve?
The change in the perception of messengers as a means of communication came at a time when the speed and stability of wireless networks allowed people to communicate beyond the computer monitor or laptop screen. After a number of test attempts in the 2010s, almost all major messengers (from Skype and Facebook to the more exotic in our land Line and WeChat) launched their own versions for mobile browsers or separate applications for smartphones.
And all this happened thanks to the advent of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android smartphones. The real revolution was made by WhatsApp, created by a descendant of immigrants from Ukraine, Yan Borisovich Kum and ex-Yahoo engineer Brian Acton. This messenger was the first to be tied to a cell phone number and the first to support push notifications for Apple smartphones. The messenger was later bought out by Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
The most significant development after 2020 was WhatsApp launched the WhatsApp API service for companies