BlackBerry Messaging (BBM) is a very engaging messaging service that is simple to use and easy to personalise. BBM gives you a private social network for active and real conversations. It uses a PIN and allows you to choose your contacts and how you share your information.
With BlackBerry's business under increasing stress to rival smartphone companies and with the board examining the possibility of laying off staff as it aims to further cut costs, a strong start for BBM now is on other platforms which is a key to its long-term survival as a business unit.
With the availability of a free download for Android smartphones running Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean (Android 4.x) and iPhones running iOS 6 and iOS 7 which will make BBM available in iPhones and Android, this will mark a radical shift for the company which once relied on BBM's exclusively to sell phones.
Although this was announced by Blackberry in May but the general consensus was that it would represent an escape route for BlackBerry users wanting to switch platforms.
However, with its eventual release now for only iphones and Android smartphones, will it really create the viable services to support BlackBerry's business?
In the past three years, other cross-platform messaging apps and services such as Google Hangouts, Line, Apple's iMessages and WhatsApp have sprung up in direct competition to BBM, with WhatsApp taking the lead because users tend to prefer whatsApp to communicate as its not specifi c on a particular smartphone as it has more than 250 million users and was processing over eight billion inbound and 12 billion outbound messages a day.
The BBM features for Android and iPhone are:
· BBM Chat though which you can enjoy real, immediate conversations with friends on Android, iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones. Not only does BBM let you know that your message has been delivered and read, it also shows you that your friend is responding to the message and you can also share fi les on your phone such as photos and voice notes, all in an instant.
· Keep your group in the loop
Multi-person chats are a great way to invite contacts to chat together. BBM groups let you invite up to 30 friends to chat together, and go a step further than multi-chat by sharing photos and schedules. Also with Broadcast Message, you can send a message out to all your BBM contacts at once.
· Post updates and stay in the know
BBM lets you post a personal message, profi le picture and your current status, and let your contacts know instantly in updates.
· Your unique PIN
Every BBM user has a unique PIN that maintains your privacy, so you don't have to give out your phone number or email address to a new contact.
BBM will continue to evolve quickly as BBM channels will provide a forum for active, real conversations between you and other people, brands, celebrities, artists, service providers, communities and lots more.
By creating a channel, individuals and brands can engage their friends and communities in conversations sparked by their thoughts, ideas and passions. Subscribing to a channel will let you join conversations with people who share your interests.
In addition, BBM video calling and BBM voice calling are planned to be available for Android and iPhone in a future version.
In essence, this could be very attractive to BlackBerry users or people who have recently switched platforms. Since Blackberry is in a fi ght for its survival, it needs to look at further expansions in its applications like considering BBM for windows phones and other smartphones in other to create more value and motivate more users to port to it.
