[quotemsg=9272401,16,107613]ICQ is still quite popular in some less developed countries like germany and russia - and ofc the usa (probably because aol bought it from mirabilis back before msn was a useful tool). In 98 it had a functionality level equal to msn of 2007 - so it was good, once.
As for skype or any other verbal communication, it has the drawback of no backlogs. Memory makes mistakes, logs don't [all that often][/quotemsg]
Yeah, ICQ used to be my preferred IM as well, but now I use a combination of MSN/Skype. The main reason for choosing MSN over ICQ was that "everyone" seemed to be on MSN and less and less people came online on ICQ.
I always thought ICQ was very good when I used it though, and MSN is pretty bad, so maybe it's the right decision...
As for Skype, you can IM with that too, and that's what I meant. The IM on Skype is actually a lot better than MSN in my opinion.