Two employees at New York-based instant messaging start-up Odigo received IM warnings about two hours before the aerial attacks in two U.S cities, the company confirmed Friday.

Odigo, which has a satellite office in Israel, said employees there received pop-up text messages containing advance warning of the attacks but said the IMs did not mention the World Trade Center specifically, or any other targets.

The contents of the IM messages, including the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the sender, was given to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Odigo spokesman Alex Diamandis told atNewYork.

"Without going into details, the message was most noteworthy due to the timing, not due to the substance of the 'warning.' It could easily be coincidence," Diamandis said.

Citing the ongoing investigations, Diamandis declined to provide specifics of the actual messages or the identity or location of the sender.

He said the employees who received the IM messages were not familiar with the sender. After the attacks, the employees notified Odigo management, who turned the information over to Israeli law enforcement authorities.

Odigo, which champions seamless interoperability between IM providers, has about 80 employees, the bulk at its Manhattan headquarters. The company's software allows IM users from different platforms to communicate with each other.

In addition, the company builds branded IM and presence-based technology for wireless carriers, telcos, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Web portals.

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