ICQ upgrades IM service with new voice features

America Online’s ICQ unit has upgraded its instant messaging service, adding two types of voice communication and improving video transmission.

The service’s new version, ICQ 5, has a new PC-to-PC voice chat feature for users interested in having long conversations, and a push-to-talk feature for users who just want to exchange a few quick spoken comments.

The PC-to-PC voice chat provides a persistent voice connection, while the push-to-talk feature works similarly to a walkie-talkie, with users taking turns to speak.

ICQ 5 has enhanced video transmission features. The software lets users launch a video session directly from a message window or from the contacts list; the process previously required additional steps. Another enhancement includes the ability to capture images from a video transmission.

The new voice features and the enhanced video respond to AOL’s belief that its instant messaging services ICQ and AIM have to be broad communications tools that don’t just offer traditional IM features such as text messaging, said Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president and general manager of AIM and ICQ at Dulles, Virginia-based AOL.

“If you’re going to live up to the potential to be a great communications platform, you have to do other things beyond IM,” he said.

Another new feature in ICQ 5 is the ability to send an instant message simultaneously to multiple recipients. ICQ 5 also lets users send a message by hitting the “enter” key; before messages could only be sent by clicking with the mouse on the interface’s “send” button.

AOL has also increased ICQ’s personalization capabilities in Version 5, by giving users new “skins” to choose from for dressing up the interface and more options for crafting status messages, which a user employs to let others know what he’s doing at the moment.

Meanwhile, AOL plans to continue its strategy of having two distinct IM services, Palihapitiya said. AIM dominates the U.S. market, while ICQ is very strong abroad, and their respective user bases are extremely loyal, he said.

However, users can expect to see an increase in the degree to which AIM and ICQ interoperate, he said. ICQ and AIM are interoperable to an extent — for example, text messages can be sent across the services — but ICQ doesn’t support all of AIM’s features, and vice versa.

The new ICQ version can be downloaded for free at http://www.icq.com/download.