Most Popular Instant Messengers 1995 - 2020

In this data visualization video I look at the most popular instant messaging apps based on monthly active users. It includes the first graphical instant messaging app, PowWow. It was far ahead of its time but did not gain much traction. I know there are many more apps but their numbers were either missing or inaccurate. Here are the ones I included: 1995 PowWow First Graphical Standalone IM Client First with VoIP, whiteboard, text-to-speech, surf together, audio player 1996 ICQ First widely adopted IM client 1997 AIM Initially integrated into AOL Desktop 1998 Yahoo! Messenger 1999 QQ Popular in China 1999 MSN Messenger AKA Windows Live Messenger 2003 Skype Focused on video-chat 2005 Google Talk 2005 Blackberry Messenger 2009 WhatsApp Developed by former Yahoo employees 2009 Kik Messenger Reached 40% of US teens by 2016 2010 Viber 2011 WeChat