{"id":545949,"date":"2010-04-28T11:37:19","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T15:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=116668"},"modified":"2010-04-28T11:37:19","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T15:37:19","slug":"dst-to-take-icq-off-aol%e2%80%99s-hands-for-187-5m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/545949","title":{"rendered":"DST to Take ICQ Off AOL\u2019s Hands for $187.5M"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/04\/add-contact1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/gigaom.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/04\/add-contact1.jpg?w=300&#038;h=229\" alt=\"\" title=\"add-contact\" width=\"300\" height=\"229\"  class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-116683\" \/><\/a>AOL is finally offloading ICQ, to a newly familiar name in the tech investing space, Digital Sky Technologies. It&#8217;s actually a good regional fit as ICQ is the leading instant messaging service in Russia, where DST is based. DST has agreed to pay $187.5 million, which in the grand scheme of things is not too shabby &#8212; back in another era, AOL bought ICQ for $407 million in 1998. However, in December it had been <a href=\"http:\/\/news.cnet.com\/8301-1023_3-10414522-93.html\">reported<\/a> that DST would buy ICQ for $200-$250 million.<\/p>\n<p>ICQ has been on the block <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/11\/19\/aol-discarding-opportunities-for-web-relevance\/\">for a while<\/a>. Though using ICQ may be a long-lost memory U.S. Internet users, the IM service has 32 million uniques per month, with significant presence in Eastern Europe. That dates back to ICQ&#8217;s roots in Israel, where it was created in 1996 by Mirabilis.<\/p>\n<p>AOL, which is still looking to offload its social networking acquisition Bebo, reported a 58 percent decline in first-quarter profits today.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?host=gigaom.com&#038;blog=1149864&#038;post=116668&#038;subd=gigaom&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=Q_7dklF-1GA:ru4sh9pH9Aw:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=Q_7dklF-1GA:ru4sh9pH9Aw:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?i=Q_7dklF-1GA:ru4sh9pH9Aw:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=Q_7dklF-1GA:ru4sh9pH9Aw:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?i=Q_7dklF-1GA:ru4sh9pH9Aw:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=Q_7dklF-1GA:ru4sh9pH9Aw:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=Q_7dklF-1GA:ru4sh9pH9Aw:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?i=Q_7dklF-1GA:ru4sh9pH9Aw:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/OmMalik\/~4\/Q_7dklF-1GA\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AOL is finally offloading ICQ, to a newly familiar name in the tech investing space, Digital Sky Technologies. It&#8217;s actually a good regional fit as ICQ is the leading instant messaging service in Russia, where DST is based. DST has agreed to pay $187.5 million, which in the grand scheme of things is not too [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":673,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-545949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/673"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}