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So, BBM Channels has now hit the masses, which I'm very excited about. We've gone through BBM Channel basics on how to search, subscribe to and create a channel and also gone through showing you the BBM CMC (Channel Management Console).
Let's now dig deeper. There are lots of very interesting channels to discover (you can see Team CrackBerry's recommendations here). You'll find soon enough that you've subscribed to dozens of channels and it may get a bit too much to cope with. Fear not, there are a few things you can I to make things flow a little smoother.
Notifications
At the moment, there isn't any way to be alerted when a channel puts up a post. You do, however, see a little Spark on the BBM Channels tab in the BBM app when there are updates. Then each channel with an update will also have a Spark in the top right corner of their avatar, too.
One confusing thing about the notifications for BBM Channels is that even when there is a Spark, it will show as 0 new notifications. This is because it will only show you have a notification when someone comments on a post of yours or comments on your comment. When you have a notification, these will show up in Notifications tab in BBM Channels.
Add a channel as Favorite
You can also mark a channel as favorite. This is done by tapping and holding on a channel, then when the menu on the right pops up tap the star icon. Marking a channel as favorite will also mean you will get notifications whenever the channel puts a post up. And these will show in the Notifications tab, so you can quickly jump to the channel.
Making use of the Favorites feature certainly makes life a lot easier to glance at your favorite channel when they have an update.
It would be great if these could show up in the Hub. Hope fully, in a future update.
Channel Activity in Updates
With this latest version of BBM, you'll see that things have been moved around a bit. Along the bottom bar you'll find an Updates tab (used to be Contacts). When scrolling through these updates, you'll see that Channel updates are included. You can view them at a glance from there and you also have the ability to 'Like' or comment on a post right from the updates tab too. What's more, you can set which channels you'd like to show up in your Updates stream, too. To do this just tap and hold on the channel you want to set, then tap the gear icon (Channel Settings). Then just toggle to on/off on whether you want the channel to show up in the Updates stream.
Now, go and enjoy BBM Channels. Don't forget, we have a thread in the forums where you can share your BBM Channels with others.
Have any great tips? Hit up the comments and let us know!
Share your BBM Channels in the CrackBerry Forums
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