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BlackBerry Social Platform Enters Public Beta

By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 at 12:41 PM
BBMe

BlackBerry Social was announced about six months ago as a way for third-party app developers to plug into RIM’s hugely popular BlackBerry Messenger client. Today it goes into public beta, allowing devs to add custom fields to BBM profiles, change profile elements like avatar pictures, embed chats within their app, enable file transfers between users, and promote app sharing through BBM.

Multiplayer gaming seems to be a big target for BBM Social, but the number of uses for these APIs are limited only by the ingenuity of app developers. Personally, I could see location-based social networking getting a lot more interesting if there was live chat available for those in your area – it could be a great way to meet people you don’t have (or necessarily want to have) on your contact list.

Full support for BlackBerry Social will be available in April along with WebWorks compatibility for those who prefer to work in web languages like CSS and Javascript. If you’re a developer and want to get started with BBM Social, hit up RIM.

[via Inside BlackBerry]

About The Author

Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000160977235 Michael Schmitt

    I’ll say it! I’ll take the one on the right and of-course a Blackberry!!!

  • http://twitter.com/shahriyarali Shahriyar Ali

    perfect add-on to BBM i suppose