ICQ 7: now it’s possible to integrate different social networks

After being the first massive program of instant messaging 13 years ago, ICQ disappeared from the spotlight. As a matter of fact, it didn’t disappear, it just lost market to other programs of the same kind as Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.

Trying to gain prominence again, we find ICQ 7. The program counts with an updated and modern interface. As soon as we enter we find a series of eyelashes from where we can add contacts and do searches, see status updates and send SMS, apart from having on the top part a field to update our status.

This new version of the program not only lets us chat through its own protocol, but also integrates with different social networks like Facebook, Digg, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube, being able to update our status directly from ICQ 7 and simultaneously.

To be able to synchronize with other 2.0 webs, after we registered and got our user on ICQ 7, in the event we didn’t have one before, we go to “Set up your feeds” and on the eyelash “My box” from which we’ll be redirected to a webpage in which we’ll need to enter our username and password. We’ll be able to see our contacts’ updates directly from the ICQ 7 window.

Furthermore, it counts with the traditional contact search that will allow us to locate contacts on the area we want, and start a conversation from the window of the program. ICQ 7 chat window looks very similar to the one of the last Windows Live Messenger versions. It has incorporated buttons for emoticons, to send files, change fonts and more. Moreover, we can also add an image as avatar apart from being able to see our contacts’.

Another remarkable improvement is the incorporation of the possibility to send SMS messaged from the same window of the program in a quick and simple way within a few clicks, being able to store the numbers of our contacts to easily access them again.

This way, ICQ 7, turning into a multiprotocol client, looks for the integration with other social networks, recover territory. If it’s true that there are other applications that perform the same task like Digsby, Pidgin or Miranda IM to name a few, it’s worth it trying the news of this old contender.

As it became known recently among off-the-record versions, the new Windows Live Messenger version will try to integrate itself with other social networks like Facebook or Twitter. What’s truth is that there are already other instant messenger clients like Digsby, Pidgin or ICQ 7 that perform this integration, although in different ways.
ICQ 7, the new version of the messenger that reigned during the end of the 90s and beginning of this century, incorporates apart from an updated and attractive interface, a support from which it’s possible to access to the notifications from Facebook, Delicious, Digg, Flickr, Twitter y YouTube. Apart from being able to carry on conversations through its own protocol, from the ICQ 7 window you can update the status of the social networks, in simultaneous or individually, as also upload photos. However, it doesn’t have any feature for the user to chat with his contacts, friends or followers from its own windows, and in some cases, this can be a little small to view the content of some of the social networks.

Who lets us do this is Digsby, which, as opposed to the previous one, doesn’t have its own protocol. Despite this, this program is a messenger client that has support for many protocols like Msn, Yahoo!, AIM, Google Talk, Facebook Chat, MySpace IM, Jabber and even ICQ.

Moreover, it lets us easily see the updates for the status, notifications and other publications from our contacts on social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter. We can also see from its window the inbox from email services like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, AOL/IM Mail and from POP e IMAP accounts. Digsby becomes a very good option integrating a great amount of options on its window.

An application that started developing long time ago as a multiprotocol is Pidgin. It has support for a great number of instant messenger protocols like MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, AIM and IRC, to name the most popular ones. Apart from that, using an add-on you can also incorporate Facebook and publish on Twitter. Furthermore, it counts with many options to administer our contacts and conversations, with automatic messages, and other unusual options like the “psychic mode”, which is known as one of the bests on that aspect.

Without a doubt, the tendency that comes developing for years of integrating the 2.0 Webs with the instant messengers it’s going to be a highlight in a few months. We can follow this trend by using any of these programs, it can be Digsby, if what interest us the most is to have access to all the services on a single window, Pidgin, if we want to have probably the best messenger client as regards options without losing sight of the integration possibilities with other 2.0 webs, or it can be ICQ 7, if we go for an updated and attractive interface.