My biggest concern with making the switch was transfering across all my old ICQ archives / chat history which date back to ICQ Pro 2001a and have grown through the version to happily reside in 2003b, and as I'd been intermittently been running ICQ 5.1 during the last few months I had two sets of archives that need to be merged before upgrading to ICQ 6 at which point I could import them... it was a rather stressful time but if you're in the same position or a similar one where you are concerned about the archive import then check out our ICQ 6 article which covers the steps I took, including creating backups, which ultimately lead to all my old archives being readily available in ICQ 6, which I have to admit is pretty dang awesome.

Before I checked out the new ICQ 6 features, I poked my nose into the latest smileys and tZers... I'm not overly fond of the new smileys but I strongly suspect that's because I'm yet to adjust to their new look, which is dramatically different to the ICQ Pro 2003b Smileys but I was impressed by the tZers which are very cool :)

But back to the ICQ 6 features... without doubt Quick IM and Grouped (tabbed) Conversations are my favourite new additions. I'm already hooked on Quick IM, and while Grouped Conversations have a few quirks, the idea of having tabbed IMs in ICQ is still appealing.

I took the ICQ 6 features for a test driving across platforms (Mac and Windows) and supported clients (ICQ, AIM, iChat) and while I'm struggling to adjust to ICQs latest offering I do see it as a good step forward, but I am concerned about how similar it is to AIM. Most ppl who know me well know I'm not overly fond of AIM, it's yet to find a place in my own personal IM world as I really haven't found anything about it that I like, or that it likes about me. I've never had a version of AIM that actually functions as it should.. but perhaps one day I'll take another look at AIM and see what v6 has to offer... until then I'll stick with ICQ 6.. at least for now ;)

Links to our Articles:
ICQ 6
ICQ 6 Smileys and tZers
ICQ 6 features
ICQ Pro 2003b