BlackBerry Messenger for Android and iOS announced

The more I think about this the less sense this move makes ... unless BlackBerry is planning to bombard this with ads. Why offer this for free and in so doing encourage people not to buy BlackBerry phones ... unless you have a new business model in mind = ad income. This must somehow create an income stream for BlackBerry. With BIS gone and BBM soon open are they only going to rely on hardware sales? Can't be. Must be some other plan here.
 
BeVonk! said:
The more I think about this the less sense this move makes ... unless BlackBerry is planning to bombard this with ads. Why offer this for free and in so doing encourage people not to buy BlackBerry phones ... unless you have a new business model in mind = ad income. This must somehow create an income stream for BlackBerry. With BIS gone and BBM soon open are they only going to rely on hardware sales? Can't be. Must be some other plan here.
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The value of a messaging program depends on the number of users. Viber, Whatsapp and I'm sure others eclipse BBM in market share. The only way to keep BBM relevant is to get more users, and that's not happening from hardware sales. It would help BB in a country like USA where it has a small userbase, over here it just makes it easier to get a better phone.
 
BeVonk! said:
The more I think about this the less sense this move makes ... unless BlackBerry is planning to bombard this with ads. Why offer this for free and in so doing encourage people not to buy BlackBerry phones ... unless you have a new business model in mind = ad income. This must somehow create an income stream for BlackBerry. With BIS gone and BBM soon open are they only going to rely on hardware sales? Can't be. Must be some other plan here.
Click to expand...

It makes more sense in markets where Blackberry makes up a small percentage, like the USA. It gets the Blackberry name out there and, probably more importantly, it will allow the small number of Blackberry users to actually have friends on BBM thereby hopefully slowing down the dramatic loss of customers.
 
This would have been great 3 years ago. Now since everybody's got WhatsApp - not so much.

I still wish WhatsApp will realize that people are not tied to their mobile phones these days - release a tablet / web / PC / mac-app damnit! Allow multiple sign-in from multiple devices and sync everything! If BBM does that - perhaps... (although I doubt it).
 
ebendl said:
This would have been great 3 years ago. Now since everybody's got WhatsApp - not so much.

I still wish WhatsApp will realize that people are not tied to their mobile phones these days - release a tablet / web / PC / mac-app damnit! Allow multiple sign-in from multiple devices and sync everything! If BBM does that - perhaps... (although I doubt it).
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http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/17/me...-but-dont-hold-your-breath-for-a-desktop-app/

Some other noteworthy details from Koum’s short interview:

– He says that WhatsApp is not likely to be making a desktop version of its service any time soon. “We get that question asked a lot,” Koum said of desktop apps. “We feel strongly that the world is moving to mobile and [so] we want to be mobile-only. Your phone is with you all the time, and desktop is to many becoming a secondary experience. [So] our answer is no, not anytime soon.”
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Take note that their R&D are on global scale.

Anybody here used Line, see it mentioned in the provided article (link) I posted.
 
MexicanStandoff said:
Screw both messaging apps.

I'm getting unlimited sms's from Vodacom.

:rolleyes:
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1. What fortune are you paying for unlimited SMS hmmmm ?
2. That would be good if ALL of your friends also have unlimited SMS. You send an SMS to someone who does not have unlimited SMS, and you might not get a reply
 
tsume said:
I'm guessing you have a iPhone. On iPhone you pay for the first time and then it's free throughout. They did have a special last year where you could get it for free.
Click to expand...
I was wondering how they keep afloat, The Charge the Apple users. I like :D

spikry said:
Time to get my BBM only contacts back... Whatsapp is cool wish everyone was using it but too many people i know use BBM.
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That is something that always bothered me about BBM, no sync and no one pin per a person, you should have to register and have one pin, and all your contacts would sync with that pin, its 2013 and Blackberry still have not caught on! Instead, you loose your BB, or get a software update or what ever other fault these stone age phones fall pray too and you get a new pin and have to start collecting contacts again.
 
ebendl said:
This would have been great 3 years ago. Now since everybody's got WhatsApp - not so much.

I still wish WhatsApp will realize that people are not tied to their mobile phones these days - release a tablet / web / PC / mac-app damnit! Allow multiple sign-in from multiple devices and sync everything! If BBM does that - perhaps... (although I doubt it).
Click to expand...

ye +1

I have been wanting a whatsapp app for the iPad mini 3G and iPad 3G for a long time now.
 
Tpex said:
I was wondering how they keep afloat, The Charge the Apple users. I like :D


That is something that always bothered me about BBM, no sync and no one pin per a person, you should have to register and have one pin, and all your contacts would sync with that pin, its 2013 and Blackberry still have not caught on! Instead, you loose your BB, or get a software update or what ever other fault these stone age phones fall pray too and you get a new pin and have to start collecting contacts again.
Click to expand...


Registering and linking a pin to a registered account would make sense.
 
BeVonk! said:
I was charged $1 to load WhatsApp on a new phone a few weeks ago, so some of us are paying already.

I prefer BBM and will get it the moment it is available. Some people don't like the feature but I like getting the "R" when someone actually read the message and not just a second tick in WhatsApp that says it was delivered. Delivered is not the same as read. One sometimes need to know the message was actually read and not just sitting there on a phone unnoticed.
Click to expand...

On Whatsapp the double-tick means delivered. To see if the person has actually read it you can just have a look at the top where it will say when last the contact was seen. If that time is after the time of the message, then the message was read. Works fine, but I admit, I would have preferred a third tick...
 
Well maybe if BBM supports tablets I'd use it.
WhatsApp is great and I have managed to hack it onto the nexus 7, but it is a schlep to do so every time there is an update.
 
themba990 said:
Whatsapp hasn't done anything to bbm
Whatsapp just filed a gap
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When I explained to my wife that she could still message her Blackberry friends and family for free using WhatsApp she dumped her Blackberry and purchased an S3. So I'd say that WhatsApp has done damage to BBM.
She won't go back to a Blackberry even if I paid her to.
 
Seems a strange move from BB - in my opinion it will only make the move from BB to Android/iOS easier!?

It's a free app, and free to use, so unless it's somehow going to be ad supported I don't get it.

I'll download it and have a look, but I think Google Babel (expect official announcement at I/O today) looks to be far more interesting.
 
Wtf would I get this when all my contacts that have Cr@pberries already have Whatsapp? :confused:
 
Tobi-5520 said:
On Whatsapp the double-tick means delivered. To see if the person has actually read it you can just have a look at the top where it will say when last the contact was seen. If that time is after the time of the message, then the message was read. Works fine, but I admit, I would have preferred a third tick...
Click to expand...

With Iphone you can still read the message without actually opening the message.
 
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