Press Release: Research In Motion announces BBM social platform

By Bla1ze on 27 Sep 2010 03:19 pm

Research In Motion today has announced they will be taking BlackBerry Messenger and opening it's doors to third party developers. Developers will now have the access needed in order to integrate BlackBerry Messenger into their applications and make use of all the social aspects of BlackBerry Messenger. As we've seen with other applicatins such as Twitter For BlackBerry integration throughout the OS plays a vital role on the BlackBerry platform and now. Read on the full press release after the break.

Press Release

RIM Announces BBM Social Platform

Developers Will Be Able to Leverage the Power of Social Interactions within their Apps

San Francisco, CA – BlackBerry DEVCON 2010 – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the BBMTM (BlackBerry® Messenger) Social Platform, giving developers the tools to build applications that take advantage of the social aspects of the popular BBM service.

“The BlackBerry developer community has been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to integrate BlackBerry Messenger with their apps. BBM is a very popular service with over 28 million users and opening its real-time social connectivity to third party applications presents incredible opportunities,” said Alan Brenner, Senior Vice President,BlackBerry Platform at Research In Motion. “Access to BBM services from within apps will revolutionize gaming, enhance multimedia experiences, and add a new dimension to location based applications.”

Developers will be able to integrate various functions of the BBM service into their applications including chat capabilities, content sharing, and invitations. For example, users will be able to invite their BBM friends to join them in a game and then chat with one another while the game is being played.

Other BBM functionality accessible to developers through the BBM Social Platform includes:

Contact list – allows users to choose from their BBM contacts from within another application in order to initiate social interactions such as chatting or initiating game play
BBM user profile – an application can insert application status updates into the user's BBM profile allowing it to be launched or downloaded from BBM by the user’s friends
Application-specific communities – users can create BBM friend groups specific to an application

Data Transfer – allows users to transfer pictures, audio, video and other content directly from an application to their BBM contacts or groups Invitations – allows users to invite new friends to BBM, invite their friends to interact within or download an application, and accept invitations, all from within an application

Through the BBM Social Platform, RIM is providing the BlackBerry developer community with the opportunity to leverage the power of BBM in their own applications in order to help drive loyalty to their applications through social and community interactions, as well as increase discoverability of their applications through peer communications and referrals. Several BlackBerry® Alliance members are already testing the BBM Social Platform as part of an early access program.

“Kik is all about sharing, buying and experiencing music on a mobile platform, so integrating with BBM will deliver huge value to our users,” said Kik CEO Ted Livingston. “Kik users will be able to connect with friends and colleagues to discover and share music, the experience will be much more intimate through BBM.”

“With the new BBM Social Platform we will be able to build a ground breaking social eReading experience,” said Dan Liebu, Chief Technology Officer at Kobo. “We expect to increase engagement as Kobo users share their reading and shopping experiences in real-time.”

“The BBM Social Platform will allow us to bring innovative social features to our games that get friends playing together. Making social connections is a cornerstone to successful casual gaming, and with BBM integration, our fans will be able to easily connect with their friends to compete or cooperate,” said Nick Tremmaglia, Product Manager THK Live, Magmic Games

“The integration of BBM functionality into our leading sports app will be a game-changer for ScoreMobile,” says Benjie Levy, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Score Media Inc. “We expect that embedding key BBM features will deepen user engagement, lengthen visit sessions, and help virally grow ScoreMobile’s user base.”

“Telmap’s search, mapping and navigation solutions have been a huge success in recent years and have proven to be extremely popular with BlackBerry smartphone users. We are proud to be one of the first application developers to integrate with BBM, as we strongly believe that the combination of a community together with Telmap’s expert location capabilities and BBM’s best-in-class messaging solution, will result in a winning offering,” said Motti Kushnir, Telmap CMO.

The BBM Social Platform is expected to be available in the spring of 2011.

Quick Links:

http://www.blackberry.com/developer/bbm

For RIM insights into developing for the BlackBerry Platform, visit http://devblog.blackberry.com or follow @blackberrydev on Twitter.

Visit the BlackBerry Developer Zone at www.blackberry.com/developers for the latest news, information and updates for BlackBerry developers leading up to the conference and throughout the year.

Also, visit the new BlackBerry Developer Video Library at www.blackberry.com/go/developervideolibrary to view a variety of instructional videos.

Topics: BBM Research In Motion Social DevCon10 News & Rumors

Bla1ze 3029 (articles) 6919 (forum posts)

29 comments

vedelorme Sep 27, 2010 at 4:30 pm

is it just me or is BBM just a waste of precious memory space?

crisrobiou Sep 27, 2010 at 4:56 pm

just you

MILLYBLICK Sep 28, 2010 at 8:33 am

lmao

Gallia Sep 27, 2010 at 5:00 pm

depends what kind of user you are. many would say bbm is one of the primary selling sources for blackberries right now. you at least can't deny its extreme popularity. i myself use it a lot simply because it's an extremely efficient and generally reliable means of communications, although it has let me down on one too many occasions.

Matt J Sep 27, 2010 at 5:04 pm

BBM is the BB killer app. Nothing even comes close.

joey1910 Sep 27, 2010 at 5:31 pm

Definitely just you

BerryDiva Sep 27, 2010 at 5:33 pm

Really does depend on how you use it; quite honestly it's the most valuable app I have on my phone when it comes to balancing managing projects with a team, completing my day-to-day tasks, and work-life balance. It can definitely stand some enhancements but definitely a good app.

kbeard26 Sep 27, 2010 at 7:19 pm

do you not have bbm friends or something? bbm is one of the many addictive parts of a BlackBerry!

vedelorme Sep 27, 2010 at 10:11 pm

texting works just fine and is more efficient for me and saves me 6mb of memory space.

bgriff25 Sep 27, 2010 at 4:32 pm

I hope this means that we can assign alerts to contacts through BerryBuzz!!

vgs487 Sep 27, 2010 at 5:38 pm

I definitely agree! Been waiting for that to be possible!

_StephenBB81 Sep 27, 2010 at 5:42 pm

I would send an email to Berry Buzz, maybe author it and post it in the forums for others to copy and send in as well requesting BerryBuzz add such functionality.

shimojunk Sep 27, 2010 at 5:03 pm

they should have opened up BBM to developers over a year ago.

vgs487 Sep 27, 2010 at 5:43 pm

I hope they fix this small "issue" with bbm. When you're in an sms thread, let's say you're reading halfway through a message, once you press R, the cursor goes to the typing box and doesn't scroll down to the bottom part of the message. Meaning you're still at the part of the message that you wanna see while typing your reply. But in bbm, when you press R, it goes to the last part or bottom part of the thread before you can start typing. This can be a hassle sometimes because you'd have to scroll up if you forgot a certain part of a message that you have to reply to.

Joy1980 Sep 27, 2010 at 5:54 pm

I wonder if they will allow you find new contacts friends who share your interests. I use pinwall but it is not exactly what I am looking for. Too many people looking for booty calls.

kbeard26 Sep 27, 2010 at 7:26 pm

that would be neat...a bbm type linkedin to network lol

rayzup478 Sep 27, 2010 at 5:58 pm

that it will be open to these other mobile messenger options like LiveProfile or Crosstalk which seems to promote the fact that they will definitely integrate with BBM? That would be great because alot of my friends have already jumped ship to Android and that seems to be the only one thing that they miss.

dacphilly Sep 27, 2010 at 6:45 pm

Does this mean this is a step towards having a blackberry device accessible from an IM client like Meebo or Trillian? That functionality would make BBM the "killer app."

Ebscer Sep 27, 2010 at 7:58 pm

integrating bbm into an app like trillion will be easy with these apis

F-16 Sep 27, 2010 at 8:19 pm

Whats the point why everyone here seems to usw BBM? What does it have over e.g. Aim or ICQ?
You can run BBM only on Blackberrys (so far) - but you can run ICQ on Blackberrys (as substitute) plus on Iphones, Droids, PCs and Macs ...
Arent those clients way superior because you can stay connected to all your mobile friends and not just with BB-using-friends?
I'm really curious about that because so far i don't use BBM...
Oh and another huge con: If you change devices - your BBM adress changes ... I personally use Icq ever since ... And have had the same icq uin on my storm 9500, bold 9000, curve 8520 and now bold 9700 (and in between even on my T-Mo Sidekick)... Plz tell me WHY use BBM and why is it so "mighty"?

nikkisharif Sep 28, 2010 at 3:01 am

Yes your PIN changes when you switch devices but you don't have to send out new invites if you backed up your BBM contact list. I've changed devices several times & none of my contacts have known I changed unless I told them or they saw me with a new BB, so the transition is seamless. I like BBM because the friends I have that use IM use BBM & the friends on others platforms would rather use text messaging. I also use BBM along with Skype for BB to keep in touch with my friend in London.

mpatchez Sep 28, 2010 at 12:29 am

To be honest, I think that bbm as it stands on our devices right now is a bit over rated, but BBM is my first pro when I start comparing other phones. Lol Every since 5.0 came out its gotten so much easier to use, thank you bar codes! The profiles make it fun, but I think the biggest thing about BBM is that its exclusive to Blackberry. Its always been a simple and convenient way to communicate. Now its getting exciting with hidden codes at concerts for promos, and quicker file transfers I find myself always using BBM. I deffinately prefer it over texting or anyother social network apps. I still like telling people they need to have a blackberry to keep in touch with me. It will be nice to see apps to create skins on BBM, that would make it more exciting too. Or at least figure out a way to change this annoying blue glowing keys on my Storm- I know that's not BBM related- ha!

Bafil Sep 28, 2010 at 1:05 am

I like using BBM and like the features of it but all of my close friends have moved on to other smartphones d:( I need new friends.

the brother Sep 28, 2010 at 1:19 am

i smell BBM viruses in the works...will be a sad day when this platform opens up to spam

BBBrendan882 Sep 28, 2010 at 12:42 pm

Would anyone like to see the new bbm having a conversation layout like CrunchSMS?

mavricxx Sep 30, 2010 at 3:01 am

Awsome communication tool! You can save alot by using this app. I communicate with my family in Honduras, Canada, US for free without having to use my texting mins. I would love it if they added video call ability to this app. Also by adding it to other phones it has many possibilities of becoming super popular.

Defero Oct 2, 2010 at 2:18 pm

if i didn't know people outside of Canada then I wouldn't care so much. Especially in Europe where there are so many little countries its rad to not have to pay ten euro cents to all your friends. In many different countries. Also no one mentioned that you can send bbm from wifi even when you are traveling outside your country and then don't need to pick up a sim card to send messages, just have to find a hotspot.

I was visiting london and could bbm almost like I was at home.

SlimGuy78 Oct 2, 2010 at 8:38 pm

So does this mean we might see FB chat in the future ?

beware96 Oct 5, 2010 at 11:07 am

Opening BBM to other platforms is obviously a great thing for BBM, but also not so great because I know a lot of people who only hang on to a Blackberry because of BBM, which means they may move to another platform if BBM will work, which means RIM may lose a lot of hardware sales. I guess RIM may charge licensing, to these apps to use BBM

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