Gadu-Gadu ( Polish for "chit-chat"; commonly known as GG or gg) is a Polish

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...

client using a

proprietary protocol In telecommunications, a proprietary protocol is a communications protocol owned by a single organization or individual. Intellectual property rights and enforcement Ownership by a single organization gives the owner the ability to place restricti ...

. At one time, Gadu-Gadu was the most popular IM service in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, with over 15 million registered accounts and approximately 6.5 million users online daily. Gadu-Gadu's casual gaming portal had some 500,000 active users as at the end of March 2009. Users send up to 300 million messages per day. Gadu-Gadu is financed by the display of

advertisements Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of interest to consumers. It is typically us ...

. The developer is based in

Koszalin Koszalin (; ; , ) is a city in northwestern Poland, in Western Pomerania. It is located south of the Baltic Sea coast, and intersected by the river Dzierżęcinka. Koszalin is also a county-status city and capital of Koszalin County of West Pomera ...

, Poland and the company is wholly owned by another Polish company, Fintecom.

Features

Gadu-Gadu uses its own proprietary protocol. As with ICQ, users are identified by unique serial numbers. Protocol's features include status messages,

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include ...

, and

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

. Users may format and embed images in messages. Starting from client version 6.0, an experimental feature utilizing a secure SSL connection was introduced, although it remained inactive until the beta release of version 10.0. The official client provides over 150

emoticons An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for emotion icon, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers and letters—to express a person's feelings, mood or reaction, without needin ...

, allows grouping contacts, sending SMS and integrates with other services run by the same company: a virtual Internet dial-up, a

social networking A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...

site MojaGeneracja.pl (defunct since 5 November 2012) and an

internet radio Internet radio, also known as online radio, web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio and IP radio, is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not ...

Open.fm. On February 9, 2009, a significant new major version of the application, named ''Nowe Gadu-Gadu'' (which translates to "New Gadu-Gadu" in Polish), was released. The

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

underwent a complete overhaul, being rebuilt from scratch using the Qt framework. This update brought along a range of notable enhancements, including the introduction of voice calling capabilities, a

spell checker In software, a spell checker (or spelling checker or spell check) is a software feature that checks for misspellings in a text. Spell-checking features are often embedded in software or services, such as a word processor, email client, electronic ...

, an anti-

spam Spam most often refers to: * Spam (food), a consumer brand product of canned processed pork of the Hormel Foods Corporation * Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages ** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages ...

filter, the ability to display

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

videos directly within the chat window as embeds, customizable skins, the addition of tabs, and several other additions aimed at improving the user experience and security. Gadu-Gadu allows its users to add personal information to a publicly searchable directory. Language options include English and Polish. There is also a browser version available.

Blip.pl

Blip.pl (or just Blip) was a Polish

internet service, founded in May 2007 and currently owned by Gadu-Gadu. It had

microblogging Microblogging is a form of blogging using short posts without titles known as microposts or status updates. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the ...

capability. Soon after being established, it was purchased by Gadu-Gadu S.A in June 2007. About 329,000 people visited the site in June 2009. In October 2009 the number of posts on the network exceeded ten million. By 4 December 2010 the service had 80,000 users. Notable Polish celebrities and politicians, such as

Lech Wałęsa Lech Wałęsa (; ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the president of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 Polish presidential election, 1990 election, Wałę ...

and

Grzegorz Napieralski Grzegorz Bernard Napieralski (pronounced ; born March 18, 1974) is a Polish politician. He is an MP (member of the Sejm) and was chairman of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) from 2008 to 2011. Education and political career Napieralski was bo ...

, used the site. The service was used as a communication channel of various governmental services, for example ZUS. Blip was closed on 2 September 2013, following a two-month advance notice. During this period, users could choose to migrate their accounts to Wykop, which hosts a similar microblogging service.

References

External links

* {{Instant messaging Instant messaging clients Symbian instant messaging clients Internet in Poland Software that uses Qt Windows instant messaging clients Polish brands 2000 software

Features

Blip.pl

See also

References

External links