After talking yesterday about the ICQ release, I decided to play around with it a bit. It's not actually a "new" release as of yesterday, but it is still rather new (about a month out).

At first impression, I was rather annoyed by the startup. Like most IMs, the "standard" start is the "Welcome" Window. Although nicely designed, it's not something I like. Besides, as I soon found out, all those resources can be found in the Xtras tab. I thought the feature set was quite impressive - the multi-chat, bulk sending, Google search, AIM integration, and greeting card features were personally inviting. The customization area was accessible - granted, the "ease" of changing the features is a trade off with the time it takes to load the feature window.

So, what does the new icq have?

- Enhanced Xtras features - slider panel
- Custom status manager
- Voice Chat (VoIP)
- Games
- Push to Talk (Instant communication walkie-talkie style)
- highlight to search via Google
- SMS Follow Me Xtra (IM forwarding)
- Buzz It! Xtra - Send a message to multiple recipients

This ICQ has been downloaded 78,265,454 times in a little over a month. Pretty impressive guide to the active user base.

Being unfamiliar with ICQ Xtras myself, I read the review on CNET. It is a "personalized greeting cards, apply custom icons to your buddies, play online games, and customize your shortcuts panel for one-click access to all your favorite features." It is also the way that new ICQ features can be delivered without having to upgrade the entire ICQ client. I think this could be a great feature - seamless integreation would allow us to enhance our communication without hassle.

My overall impression - very good IM - the focus seems to be enhancing the social networking available through icq with more ways to communicate - from standard IM to voice options to SMS. There are even more options to talk one-to-many or many-to-many, creating more of that "community" feel that really appeals to me.

I would argue that the advertisements are a large downside to the client. Additionally, some missing features include group voice chat or encrypted chat. Although I don't intend to switch to icq (I still feel ike an outsider to the target market due to some of the features and the icon design), I think it is a very clean and intuitive system.

Just like everyone else out there, I am still waiting for the IM that will offer great feature sets like these and seamlessly integrate with all major IMs (icq, MSN, Yahoo). But that's another post.