Redwood City, California. Headquarters of "Silicon Valley Online."
"Done." Harry dropped a thick stack of documents onto Tom Kalinske's desk, then collapsed into the sofa opposite him, his eye sockets sunken deep but his expression wildly exhilarated. "ICQ—and that 'Passport' system—everything's finished."
He twisted open a bottle of cola and took a huge gulp.
"I brought in those DEFCON guys I know," Harry said after burping, continuing, "They tried every trick they could think of. One of them even swore that if he managed to break in, he'd plaster my personal info on the BBS front page in exchange for a year of free pizza. And now he's seriously considering how to sell our system to a bank."
Tom Kalinske flipped through the documents, his eyes growing brighter and brighter. The system architecture personally named by Takuya Nakayama—the "Silicon Valley Online Passport"—had been polished by Harry and his hired hackers into something resembling a fortress.
"Outstanding work, Harry," Tom said. "That Nakayama kid didn't misjudge you."
"So," Harry rubbed his hands together, his face lit with the unique fanaticism of a geek about to show the world a new toy, "can we let this little baby out now?"
Tom picked up the phone and dialed a number. "Get ready to go live. Take that 'king's seat' we've been saving all this time and show it to every college student in North America!"
…
Stanford University, inside a men's dormitory room.
Philip dialed into the internet with practiced ease. After the piercing connection tones faded, he smoothly opened the Silicon Valley Online BBS client.
As one of the earliest users, the BBS had already become part of his college life. Arguing with MIT students over "the best programming language," or debating Quentin Tarantino's latest film with NYU artsy types in the movie section, was far more interesting than attending boring fraternity parties.
But today, something was different about the BBS main interface.
On the right side of the screen, in the most prominent spot that had always been blank, content appeared for the first time.
It wasn't a line of dull text, but a small, colorful animated icon—a green, eight-petaled flower. Next to it were three bold letters: ICQ.
Below that was a line of small text: I Seek You. Find your friends online.
"Hey, Matt, come look!" Philip shouted up to the top bunk. "There's something new on the BBS!"
The entire BBS exploded because of this tiny change.
"What's that? That green flower thing?"
"ICQ? 'I seek you'? Sounds like a dating app?"
"Who cares—if it's made by Silicon Valley Online, it's gotta be good! There's an FTP download link. I've already started downloading! They even added a one-click copy button for the address."
This spot—jokingly called the "king's seat" by Tom—had existed in the BBS design from the very beginning, yet had never been opened to any company.
Even in the Industry section, countless companies tried desperately to advertise, but all they could do was obediently add an [advertisement] tag to their post titles and drown in the flood of information.
Now, the first occupant of this golden throne was something no one had ever seen before.
This wasn't just advertising. It was a declaration.
At the same time, just like during the original BBS promotion, a massive ground campaign swept through university campuses once again.
Part-time students wearing T-shirts printed with "Silicon Valley Online" and the ICQ green flower appeared at cafeteria entrances, outside libraries, and under dorm buildings, holding stacks of flyers and posters.
"Hey, try ICQ! It lets you chat anytime, anywhere with friends you find on the BBS!"
"It's way cooler than email—it's instant!"
Philip's mouse pointer moved without hesitation to the FTP address and the copy button beside it.
"Matt, are you downloading it?" he asked. "This thing looks interesting."
Matt stuck half his head out from the top bunk, watching the download progress crawl across Philip's screen. "Download it! Of course! Anything made by Silicon Valley Online—even if it's a pile of crap, I've gotta taste it!"
In the campus network environment of the 1990s, downloading an installer of several dozen megabytes wasn't exactly fast. But neither of them felt impatient—instead, it felt like waiting for a feast to begin.
The progress bar finally filled. The installation flashed by, and a green eight-petaled flower icon quietly appeared on Philip's desktop.
Double-click.
The interface that appeared was almost excessively clean: just two input fields for account and password, with "Login" and "Register" buttons beneath them.
Philip clicked "Register," and a dense user agreement instantly popped up.
"Holy crap!" Matt jumped down from the bunk and leaned in. "Philip, is this a contract selling your soul? This is longer than my graduation thesis requirements!"
Philip didn't read a word. He casually dragged the scroll bar to the bottom and clicked "Agree."
At that moment, the spirit of users worldwide possessed him.
The rest of the registration process, however, felt novel.
Besides choosing a nickname, it forced users to bind an email address.
"Complete binding by receiving a verification code via email…" Philip read softly, then opened his email client.
Half a minute later, an email from Silicon Valley Online lay quietly in his inbox.
Enter the code, set a password—the whole process was smooth and seamless.
"Done!"
A pop-up window appeared, displaying a line of numbers.
[Congratulations, your ICQ number is: 9527]
"9527?" Matt laughed. "That number sounds kind of weird, doesn't it?"
Philip ignored him and logged in successfully using the number and password.
The main interface appeared.
It was brutally minimalist. On the left were two lonely tabs—"Friends" and "Groups"—both completely empty.
On the right was a large blank area, with only a "Refresh Messages" button and a main menu button at the top.
"That's it?" Matt scratched his head, puzzled. "What can this thing even do?"
Philip frowned too. He instinctively clicked "Refresh Messages," but nothing happened.
Refresh messages?
The design was exactly the same as the manual refresh mechanism of the BBS client!
A thought instantly punched through his mind.
This wasn't a standalone piece of software.
"Matt," Philip's voice went a little dry, "look. It follows the same logic as the BBS. But unlike the BBS plaza, this is—point-to-point. A messenger."
"Then how do you add friends?" Matt still didn't get it.
Philip dug through the menu and quickly found the answer. "You have to enter the other person's ICQ number."
They looked at each other.
Instantly, they understood the brilliance of the system.
You want to chat with friends from the BBS using ICQ? Sure. But first, you have to know their ICQ number.
And how do you find that out?
Go back to the BBS and ask! Make posts! Show off your number!
"I get it!" Philip slapped his thigh, his face lighting up with manic excitement. "Those bastards at Silicon Valley Online—they never planned to promote this themselves. They want us, all the users, to spread it across the entire BBS like a virus!"
He practically dove onto the keyboard, fingers flying as he switched back to the BBS client and typed a brand-new post title in the Stanford section.
[My ICQ is 9527! Dare to add me! First one gets a week of free cola!]
Philip's post was like a stone tossed into a calm lake, instantly stirring massive waves in the Stanford board.
[9527? Why does that sound like a prisoner number?]
[Is OP a devil? Betting a whole week of cola just to trick us into downloading this? Give me the link—I'm in!]
Matt leaned over from the bunk. "Philip, add my number too! Mine's 9533! Tell them the second person to add me gets half a week of cola!"
"You're so cheap," Philip mocked him, though his hands never stopped.
He didn't bother looking for any instructions. Trusting his intuition, he clicked the lonely "Friends" tab on the left side of the main interface. At the top was a small plus button.
A simple input box popped up, asking for an ICQ number.
"9533, right?"
"Yeah!"
Philip entered the number and confirmed.
After Matt clicked "Refresh Messages," the green flower on his screen started flashing wildly, accompanied by a crisp "Whoa!" notification sound.
[User 9527 requests to add you as a friend.]
Matt fumbled and clicked "Accept."
Philip's interface refreshed instantly. The number "9533" appeared in his friend list. He double-clicked it, and a chat window popped open.
He typed a line and pressed Enter.
[Hello World.]
When Matt refreshed his messages, the line immediately appeared in his chat window.
"Damn!" Matt exclaimed. "This is a hundred times faster than email!"
He quickly replied: [So are you really buying me a week of cola?]
Philip grinned at the newly refreshed message and hammered on the keyboard: [In your dreams.]
Just then, he noticed a button labeled "FaceWord" above the input box. What was that? Curious, he clicked it.
[:-)]
A string of strange characters was sent.
"What the hell did you just send me?" Matt yelled.
Before his voice even faded, his tone changed. "Whoa! Philip! Look! Those characters turned into a smiley face on my screen!"
Philip froze, then immediately had Matt send one back.
After clicking "Refresh Messages," his screen showed a vivid yellow smiley face made of simple lines.
"Cool!"
The two college guys instantly found a new obsession. Like Columbus discovering a new continent, they tried out every expression in FaceWord—crying faces, goofy faces, angry, surprised. The small chat window filled with icons, and the dorm room overflowed with laughter.
"Whoa!"
The notification sounded again.
Philip's green flower started flashing once more.
[User 10125 requests to add you as a friend.]
[Message: Hey man, I'm from MIT. Is the cola ready?]
"Oh shit, that was fast!" Philip's heart leapt, an indescribable thrill rushing to his head.
It worked. Viral marketing—it worked.
He approved the request, watching his friend list grow from one to two, then three, then four. Notification sounds rang nonstop in the dorm, like complete madness.
After the fun, a practical issue surfaced.
"Philip," Matt said, calming down, "we've chatted so much—where are these records stored? My hard drive doesn't have much space left."
The question snapped Philip awake. He finally went to check the user guide in the main menu.
Dense English text—this time, he read it carefully.
"So that's how it is…" Philip muttered.
ICQ messages were stored on the server for only one month. Once downloaded locally, the server deleted them after twenty-four hours.
Storage rights and responsibility were entirely handed over to the user.
"Look at this," Philip pointed at the screen. "You can set your local storage limit, choose whose chat logs to keep, and for how long. These guys even accounted for precious disk space."
In an era when hard drives were priced by the megabyte, this feature was considerate to the extreme.
"There's also a group function!" Philip discovered excitedly. "You can create three groups for free, up to a hundred people each!"
Without hesitation, he created a group named: [Cola Challengers Alliance].
He posted the group number to his BBS thread.
[Group ID 1414. Anyone who wants cola, get in!]
The next second, the group member count began rising at a visible pace.
5… 17… 38…
Watching IDs from universities all over the U.S. pop in and enthusiastically spam "Hello" in the group chat, Philip leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath.
He knew it—a new era of instant messaging had been ushered in early by that green flower. And he was among the first witnesses.
The first twenty-four hours after ICQ went live, at Silicon Valley Online headquarters.
The newly appointed CEO, Frank Marshall—the man Tom had poached from Apple—sat at the head of the conference table in a well-tailored business-casual outfit. A cup of long-cold coffee rested in his hand as he calmly surveyed everything before him.
Harry and his team looked practically nailed to the data monitoring console—eyes hollow, faces greasy, but spirits frighteningly high.
"Registrations have broken five thousand," Harry announced hoarsely, a trace of uncertainty even in his own voice.
The number was decent—but far from spectacular.
Frank Marshall set his coffee down. The soft clink of the cup against the table made everyone's hearts jump. "Harry," he said evenly, "based on our server and bandwidth investment, this growth rate can only be called 'healthy.'"
His wording was polite. His meaning was clear: not enough.
"Give it time, Frank," Tom Kalinske said calmly, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. He looked more composed than anyone. "ICQ isn't a one-shot deal. It's a social virus. Viruses need time to spread. People have to download it first, then go to the BBS to show off their numbers, then find friends. That chain needs time to start running."
Frank didn't argue. He simply nodded, eyes returning to the gently rising curve on the big screen, and instructed operations to expand server capacity according to plan.
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