Remember ICQ? Back in the late 1990s, it was the chat service that most of us used, with each person identified not by a chosen handle, but by an assigned five-digit number. But after AOL bought the service, a lot of the users went on to other chat clients: AOL’s own AIM, MSN Chat, Skype, Gtalk and many others.
In February, we reported that AIM had added Facebook Chat to its supported services, but ICQ actually quietly beat its partner in crime (AOL owns both) to the punch in some sense, having released ICQ 7 back in January with Facebook support. That included a way to do status updates, although Chat has only gone live today.
In fact, Meebo was far ahead of AIM, ICQ or anyone else when it became the first chat service to officially add Facebook Chat back in February 2009. But there’s nothing unique about Facebook integration anymore. With the additions we’ve seen early this year, it’s probably fair to say that Facebook is now integrated with most of the world’s major chat services and clients.