In the summer of p>1996, three young people from Israel, Weisig, Wadi and Goldfinger, got together and decided to develop a software to make full use of the characteristics of instant communication on the Internet to realize rapid and direct communication between people, which led to the design idea of ICQ. At that time, it was almost a personal "toy" for them to communicate with each other online in time, and a small company named Mirabilis was established to provide ICQ services to all registered users. Later, AOL bought ICQ for $287 million. In May this year, its number of users has exceeded 1 million, with an average of 1 million users online every day, and each user spends an average of three hours online. In 1999, a large number of online instant messaging software imitating ICQ emerged in China, such as the earliest Picq, Oicq, OMMO, etc. Sina, Netease and Sohu also developed similar software, such as Sina's UC. The predecessor of QQ, OICQ, was also launched for the first time in February 1999. QQ was able to stand out among so many online instant messaging software, and eventually all other competitors were buried, occupying more than 74% of the online instant messaging software market in China, half of which depended on strength and the other half on luck. Accidentally created Tencent On November 11th, 1998, Ma Huateng and his college classmate Zhang Zhidong formally registered and established "Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd.". At that time, the company's main business was to expand the wireless network paging system. At the beginning of the company's establishment, the main business was to establish an online paging system for paging stations. This software development project for enterprises or units can be said to be the best choice for almost all small and medium-sized network service companies. In 1997, Ma Huateng came into contact with ICQ and became its user. He personally felt the charm of ICQ and saw its limitations: first, the English interface, and second, it was quite difficult to use it, which made ICQ widely used in China, but it was not particularly popular all the time, and most of it was limited to the "net-worm" level masters. At first, Ma Huateng and his partners wanted to develop a Chinese ICQ software and then sell it to a powerful enterprise. At that time, Tencent didn't think about running a Chinese ICQ that required huge investment but could not make money. At that time, it was because a large enterprise intended to invest a large amount of money in the field of Chinese ICQ. Tencent also wrote a project construction book and started to develop and design OICQ. When bidding, Tencent did not win the bid, and as a result, Tencent decided to do OICQ itself. You know, at that time, the price that Tencent gave OICQ was only over 3,. Later, when Tencent began to develop rapidly, Ma Huateng said in a timely manner, "We need our own Chinese network software, and we need our own ICQ!" But in fact, Tencent's launch of OICQ was purely accidental. If that big company didn't intend to invest in the field of Chinese ICQ, there would be no OICQ. If Tencent won the bid, there would be no OICQ of Tencent. Tencent's success is partly luck and partly strength. Many people who won the battle have been questioning why QQ, which is not particularly good in function, can dominate the crowd and finally almost monopolize the online instant messaging software market in China. Yes, from the functional point of view, QQ has always been nothing special, but compared with other online instant messaging software, there is nothing special. Everyone imitates ICQ. However, the success of QQ lies not in its powerful functions, but in its reasonable interface design and simple user operation. Compared with other online instant messaging software of the same generation as QQ, such as Sina pager and OMMO, their functions are not weaker than QQ at first, especially OMMO, which launched many functions much stronger than QQ as soon as it came out, such as e-mail and network hard disk. Too many functions make users feel that the operation is very cumbersome. In February, 1999, Tencent launched the first test version of OICQ on the Internet, which contained very simple functions, including only simple online instant messaging functions, but its interface design was admirable. In fact, although Tencent has launched more than a dozen versions of QQ software so far, its interface has not changed, which shows that the interface design of Tencent OICQ software is very reasonable from the beginning. This has enabled Tencent's OICQ registered users to reach more than 2, in just two months. Although this is only less than the number of new registered users in Tencent, it was a considerable number at that time. In the following months, Tencent launched OICQ 99a, which successively added public chat rooms, file transfer, wireless paging, mobile phone short message, voice chat, etc. The launch of OICQ 99a established Tencent's dominance in the online instant messaging market in China. By the end of 1999, the registered users of OICQ had reached an unprecedented 1.3 million, with an average online user of more than 15,, occupying 8% of online instant messaging in China at that time. Surprisingly, after Tencent added so many functions, OICQ's interface still hasn't changed. In fact, OICQ has won by this time, and the characteristics of online instant software determine the occurrence of Matthew effect in this market. This is like two cities. The more prosperous people are willing to go to, the more prosperous the city will be, while the barren city will be more barren. Tree big began to catch the wind, and QQ staged a big face change. By 2, Tencent's OICQ had basically occupied more than 9% of the online instant messaging market in China, and basically locked in the victory. At this time, trouble came. AOL sent a lawyer's letter to Tencent. ICQ is a registered trademark of AOL, so any similar software that uses the word ICQ in its name is at risk of infringing AOL's trademark right. Ask Tencent to change the name of OICQ, otherwise it will go to court. Therefore, in the OICQ2 Build 325 version, OICQ made another change of self-protection in advance, but the 325 version called itself "QQ2" from the beginning of the installation file to avoid legal conflict with ICQ. This QQ was originally a nickname for OICQ by netizens, but it became the official new name of OICQ overnight. And in this version, Tencent also made another big move, that is, it replaced the well-known cartoon portraits such as Donald Duck, Garfield, Kitty Cat, Pikachu, Popeye, Tom Cat, Smurfs, Shi Nuobi and sonic the hedgehog, and replaced them with cartoon portraits designed and produced by Tencent itself. Because Tencent has been using these famous cartoon portraits for free, it has not been authorized by the owners of these cartoon portraits. If these owners sue Tencent and demand huge compensation, the fate of QQ is unimaginable. In February, 1999, Tencent independently developed an Internet-based instant messaging network tool-Tencent Instant Messenger (TIM or Tencent QQ for short). Its reasonable design, good usability, powerful functions and stable and efficient system operation have won the favor of users. Tencent QQ is an internet-based instant messaging (im) software developed by Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd. We can use QQ to communicate with friends, send and receive information instantly, and chat face-to-face with voice and video, with very comprehensive functions. In addition, Q also has the functions of chatting with mobile phones, online paging on bp machines, chat rooms, point-to-point breakpoint continuous transmission of files, * * * sharing files, qq mailboxes, memos, network favorites, sending greeting cards and so on. QQ is not only a simple instant messaging software, but also cooperates with many paging stations and mobile communication companies in China to realize the short message interconnection between traditional wireless paging networks and gsm mobile phones. It is the most popular instant messaging (im) software with the strongest function in China. Tencent QQ supports various functions such as online chat, instant transmission of video, voice and files. At the same time, QQ can also be connected with mobile communication terminals, IP telephone networks, wireless paging and other communication modes, which makes QQ not only a simple network virtual pager, but also a convenient, practical and efficient instant communication tool. QQ is QICQ, Tencent instant chat tool. QQ used to simulate ICQ. ICQ is a chat tool for the international community, which means I seek you. OICQ imitated it and added an O before ICQ, which means "opening I seek you", but it was accused of infringement, so Tencent's boss changed OICQ's name to QQ, which is the QQ we use now, except the name. QQ is probably the most frequently used communication tool in China. With the passage of time, more and more additional products are developed based on QQ, such as QQ games, QQ pets, QQ music, QQ space, etc., which are favored by QQ users. In order to make QQ more in-depth life, Tencent has developed mobile QQ and QQ hierarchy. As long as you apply for mobile QQ, users can enjoy QQ chat on their mobile phones and charge 1 yuan for one month. Mobile QQ27 realized the single video chat of mobile phone. But the requirements for mobile phones are very high.