It's Health & Fitness Month at Mobile Nations!

With the Mobile Nations Fitness Month under way you are likely trying to find all the ways to utilize your BlackBerry smartphone to help keep yourself on the right path. Back at CES 2012 I found myself in a conversation with Adam and Kevin about getting healthier for the new year, devoting time to health and getting more fit, and it really struck home -- it was time to get my health back in my hands. Unfortunately now-a-days it is far easier (and cheaper) to grab a burger and fries from McDonalds after a long days work than it is to go home and make yourself a well balanced meal.

I knew that the convenience was just something I was telling myself to make myself feel better, and that there was really no excuse for me not to be healthier and in much better shape than I was. It was time for a change, and a big one at that. Since my BlackBerry device is almost always with me it was obvious that I should take advantage of that fact, and use it to my advantage, so I did just that.

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Earlier this week, as I was doing my usual reading of mobile industry news, I came across this article from PaidContent.org, talking about how much traffic on the Internet comes from mobile devices.

It turns out that, according to StatCounter, mobile devices are responsible for 8.5% of all website visits as of January 2012. The PaidContent article opens by basically saying that mobile Internet usage is "lagging behind".

The article bugged me enough to prompt this post. Sure, mobile traffic "only" accounts for 8.5% of total traffic. But it's up from 4.3% one year ago. Yes folks, mobile Internet use is growing at nearly double the rate of non-mobile use.

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I'm still in Amsterdam winding down BlackBerry DevCon Europe, but I just couldn't wait to get home to call my broker to place an order to double up my investment in Research In Motion. Readers of CrackBerry will remember I bought my first "symbolic" share of RIMM stock leading up to the company's Annual General Meeting of Shareholders this past June at a price of $27.75. With that share now trading below $17, I've decided as a gesture of my growing faith in RIM it's time to double up on the original investment and buy TWO more shares of RIM stock (see the execution order above). :)

There was no specific piece of news or information or technical analysis that prompted me to take this action. More so, I just woke up this morning with a gut feeling and had to roll with my instincts. I'm feeling bullish on BlackBerry. Between the new CEO Thorsten Heins, my experience on the Engadget Mobile Podcast playing BlackBerry defender, the look of that first BB10 phone (which I'm sure will evolve by launch to be even awesomer), the positive vibe at BlackBerry DevCon Europe.... it just all feels like the stars are starting to align. Yes, there are plenty of challenges still and lots of work to be done, but I think RIM employees really are jacked up to Rock & Roll their way through it. I'm feeing good.

So there you have it. Full disclosure. I doubled my investment and tripled my shares in Research In Motion. :-)

BBDoodle: RIM's New CEO Thorstein Heins rallies the RIM troops... "Lets Rock & Roll This!"

One of the most common bear arguments on RIM over the last couple of years has been that the BlackBerry brand would lose momentum in the US market. Unquestionably, this has proven to be true. ComScore's latest results show that RIM has 6.5% of the US mobile phone market. This is down sequentially from 7.1%. For comparison, Apple has 11.2% and Samsung dominates with 25.6%.

I will point out the obvious - these are not percentages of the smartphone market, they are percentages of the total mobile phone market. I don't really care to look at smartphone percentages because we're getting to the point where all phones are smart, and it's really about the death of the dumb phone nowadays.

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Ongoing BeBold Contest: Want to show off your BlackBerry passion on video? Email your own #BeBold commercial/video in to editorial@crackberry.com and if we like it we'll run it on the blogs and make ya famous (and give you some sweet prizes!).

There's a fine line between passion and stupidity, and over my years of CrackBerry blogg'n I've had a lot of fun walking that line and occasionally crossing it. Between BBM Stress Tests, Wearing PlayBooks on Gold Chains and Buying $500 BlackBerry Apps, it's not easy dreaming up new things to keep CrackBerry Nation entertained between the posts that keep you informed (like a first look at a BlackBerry 10 phone or interviews with RIM's CEO).

One of my aspiring LOL posts that I've been wanting to do for years now is a shirtless accessory review. Seriously. CrackBerry gets a lot of female traffic, and I think they'd love it! But in order to do a shirtless review I need to get my body ready for it. I'm still a ways out from getting there and have failed on my attempts before to make it happen, but with Mobile Nations Health & Fitness Month now underway and my newly developed I'm Sexy and I Know It workout plan and diet, I think this this time it may actually happen. I need your support CrackBerry Nation!

To keep me accountable throughout fitness month I recorded up today's Workout #1. If you need a laugh and are a #BeBold type of person, give it a view. Just be warned, once you see it, you can't undo the damage to your retinas. Gotta jet to the gym. Need the After video to redeem myself. I have a feeling this is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. :)

Next up in our series of DreamBerry articles, we have TEN more concept BlackBerry designs to check out, drool over, pick apart and brainstorm around. We've already seen some major creativity displayed and enthusiastic community response shown to the Anastasiadis BlackBerry and PlayBook 3.0 concepts we posted, and the ingenuity continues.

Take a gander below to discover some future Berry concepts that are both dreamy, cool and crazy. We've got spinning sliders, dual trackpad and dual display delights and more below, with the images accompanied by their creators descriptions. Gotta love CrackBerry.. talk about passionate and engaged members! Love it!!

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While Research In Motion carries out the process of recruiting a new Chief Marketing Officer to the company, I've decided to temporarily fill the position by throwing some CrackBerry Kevin BlackBerry marketing logic into the ether. You know what they say - no time like the present. And with new CEO Thorsten Heins set to present his ideas for change to RIM's board in two weeks time, the sooner we get these ideas -- both big and small -- out there, the better. Let's kick things off today with what I feel is a long overdue name change.

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Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, you will always be a part of Research In Motion. And a part of CrackBerry. You've led RIM, you've built RIM for so many years that it is difficult to imagine the company that makes BlackBerry without Jim and Mike L. As co-Chief Executive Officers, you each worked to support each other: Mike knew how to make technology work; Jim knew how to make money and grow the company.

The first Research In Motion product was the Budgie, a system for displaying information on a television screen. Think PowerPoint meets Pong. It was not what one would call a commercial success. But Mike didn't let that stop him or the company. He took the lessons learned from the experiment and applied them to other jobs, other products.

Today, Research In Motion is a bit more successful with some 70 million BlackBerry owners worldwide. The Smartphone can be found in the hands of government officials, doctors, lawyers, students, teachers, the rich and famous, internet bloggers, and that guy down the street. There are BlackBerry lovers in countries all over the world; without Mike and Jim, that would not be so.

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So here we are, after two full days of digesting the RIM CEO switchover to Thorsten Heins. The stock declined almost 13% in that time, although it's recouping some of that loss today.

A few weeks ago I got an email from a friend. There were rumors of a change of leadership on the board of directors and the market was reacting positively. The email from my friend said, "Wow, imagine what kind of reaction we'd get if Mike and Jim stepped down!"

It seemed logical enough to me. Investors wanted change and the rumors were causing investors to cast stock market votes with their dollars. So when the news broke on Sunday night, I thought we'd see a positive reaction when the market opened on Monday.

I wanted to write this article to address the problems that Wall Street has with the changes that RIM has made. I'll offer my perspective, and I'll raise some questions that I have.

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While the general BlackBerry fan knows plenty about both Jim Balsille and Mike Lazaridis, not many know just who the new head honcho of Research In Motion is. In what seemed like a whirlwind night, long time co-CEOs Balsillie and Lazaridis stepped down as 4-year RIM employee Thorsten Heins took over as CEO. If you're a BlackBerry lover, fan or enthusiast you'll certainly be curious to know a bit of the story behind RIM's new Chief. Keep reading and we'll take a look at a bit of the history behind Thorsten Heins.

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At CES RIM demonstrated Playbook 2.0 software and revealed that email (even consumer email) will be handled via ActiveSync, which is a Microsoft technology. By adopting ActiveSync to send email to the Playbook (and presumably all upcoming BlackBerry 10 devices), it sounds like the NOC isn't being used for email transport anymore.

This change is causing some people to wonder if RIM's service revenue may be at risk. The stock market has long loved the fact that RIM can collect service fees from carriers on a recurring basis. Every BlackBerry subscriber has traditionally generated a few bucks per month of service revenue for RIM. Users don't pay this to RIM directly. They just pay their bill, and RIM collects the fees from the carriers.

As you may or may not realize, RIM generates over $1 billion in service revenue per quarter, which is about 20% of their +$5 billion in quarterly revenue. It may only be 20% of revenue, but it's by far the most profitable revenue for RIM since service margins are huge. Hardware margins aren't so huge. If RIM lost these service revenues, the company would be unprofitable by most analyst estimates.

A big part of the reason that RIM stock is trading at near-record lows is driven by Wall Street's belief that this service revenue is not sustainable. After all, no other mobile platform has been able to duplicate these service fees, and given the competitive environment it's fair to ask what value-added extras RIM is bringing to the table. Something's gotta give, right?

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Today, as Kevin already mentioned, BGR published a story talking about a potential sale of RIM to Samsung. Let's talk about this in a bit more detail. I think it's a darn interesting topic.

Clearly the stock market likes the idea. Just look at the stock. The Samsung rumour was published by BGR at around 11am, and the stock immediately spiked higher, and continued to drift higher throughout the afternoon. RIM is now up over 10% and it's safe to say the reason is purely based on the Samsung rumour.

RIM has been active clarifying false rumours lately ... often using Twitter. This time I don't expect them to open their mouths at all even if they see the story as misleading or incorrect.

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Well 2012 is officially upon us. 2011 was a good year overall in the BlackBerry world as we had loads of news -- both good and bad. We've compiled a list of our top viewed reviews, news and videos for all of the past year. Now keep in mind, some of the top viewed stories were posted before the start of 2011, so this list is just a top-ten of stuff that was actually posted during the 2011 calendar year. So keep reading to see what made the list as our most viewed posts of 2011!

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RIM's Q3 conference call was another train wreck last night. Sure, they hit their reduced guidance numbers (updated December 2nd). Sure, they were profitable and managed to grow their subscriber base. But the bad news just keeps stacking up.

I've paid attention to the feedback from the other articles I've written at CrackBerry, and I know people value a balanced opinion. So I'd like to talk about the good and the bad.

Let's start with the bad ... because I think it's horribly unacceptable, and it far outweighs the good. And I have a feeling this post will be a bit longer than I planned, and I want to make sure the heavy stuff is up front.

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After the market closes this afternoon, RIM will publish its financial results for Q3 of its Fiscal 2012 year. For non-financial types, remember RIM's fiscal year ends in February.

It was only two weeks ago when RIM dropped its latest bomb. No, I'm not talking about the inventory write off. As I explained in my last article, the bigger issue is about the market demand for BlackBerry 7 devices.

RIM guided the Street to expect lower Q4 handset shipments versus the current quarter. I was surprised by this despite plenty of criticism about how I should have seen it coming. I thought BlackBerry 7 would be more than a very short term band-aid. I thought it would give RIM a few more months to get their act together on BBX (er ... make that BlackBerry 10).

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