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Despite BlackBerry’s slump, the eventual release of it’s BBM instant messenger service is being received with great enthusiasm, and has been downloaded over 5 million times, according to BBM’s twitter account. This news comes in spite of the abortive release on iOS and the leak of an unauthorised Android apk which occurred a couple of weeks ago.
BlackBerry said that 6 million people signed up at BBM.com for information regarding the release of the instant messenger application. With people queuing up to access the app on both Android and iOS, Blackberry have implemented a ‘First come, First Served’ protocol, which means the people who have downloaded the application first will be activated first, with everyone else receiving an activation email in turn. Apparently there are still over a million people using the previously leaked version of BBM for Android app.
Just in case you are unfamiliar with BlackBerry’s BBM instant messenger app, you can use it to:
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Chat with friends on Android, BlackBerry and iPhone.
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BBM is always on and always connected – no app to open.
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Know when messages have been delivered (D’s) and read (R’s).
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Share photos, files, documents, voice notes and more.
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See when contacts are responding to your message.
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Display emoticons for every mood and emotion let you express yourself.
BlackBerry’s BBM app faces fierce competition on Android from the likes of WhatsApp and Samsung’s ChatOn, amongst others, who provide a similar service. Whatsapp is platform agnostic, whilst Samsung’s ChatOn service is claimed to have doubled its user base to 100 million users, with Samsung noting that ChatON is particularly strong in the Middle East and India. At present it’s estimated that BBM has 60 million active users. And then you also have to factor Apple’s iMessage into the equation. On the face of it at least, the BBM app on Android and iOS appears to be a success, hopefully BlackBerry’s servers will be able to cope with the extra workload this time.
If you have downloaded the BBM app on Android, and have received message that you are in the queue, you might be interested in a way to circumvent the virtual waiting line in order to getting chatting sooner, rather than later.