The BlackBerry Thread

[Burninator]

What's the advantage of BBM over old fashioned text? Besides the creepy being able to see when people are typing and have read your messages part?

[Mazrim]

Instant communications: BBM is extremely fast. Text messages are incredibly slow unless you're on the same carrier, from what I can tell.

Can send multimedia through it: MMS is outdated, and the ease of sending pictures through BBM has been great for me.

Conferences: Multiple friends in the same conversation has been very useful to me.

Statuses: My friends use the status line to tell us if they're busy in a meeting or at dinner or something. Helpful for planning things or just trying to avoid being annoying.

Seeing if a message is delivered and read: Two separate things that help a lot. If I need an answer quickly, I can see if they're actually at their phone to respond. And just like MSN, you can see when someone is typing a message. I don't get offended if I don't get an answer right away like some people who watch the "name is typing a message" like a hawk.

As a side note, I would browse the internet more on my blackberry if it was faster...EDGE is not exactly great for loading non-mobile versions of sites.

[Potty]

Originally Posted by Burninator

What's the advantage of BBM over old fashioned text? Besides the creepy being able to see when people are typing and have read your messages part?

Also easy to have group discussions.

[burn_baby_burn]

Originally Posted by Burninator

What's the advantage of BBM over old fashioned text? Besides the creepy being able to see when people are typing and have read your messages part?

Its free between BlackBerry users. For instance, down at Disney Land my wife and I could BBM each other to see where the other one was or where to meet if we got separated. With a text, we would have been charged for that (I believe).

Also there is no character limit. Which is nice if you are chatting with some one. Plus you can send pictures or video.

Being able to see if the message is delivered and read I find very helpful. Especially for work. I want to see if it has been delivered and that it has been read to make sure my question or answer has gotten through. Sometimes with text messages they don't get delivered for hours (very rare but it does happen).

[silentsim]

Originally Posted by burn_baby_burn

Its free between BlackBerry users. For instance, down at Disney Land my wife and I could BBM each other to see where the other one was or where to meet if we got separated. With a text, we would have been charged for that (I believe).

Also there is no character limit. Which is nice if you are chatting with some one. Plus you can send pictures or video.

Being able to see if the message is delivered and read I find very helpful. Especially for work. I want to see if it has been delivered and that it has been read to make sure my question or answer has gotten through. Sometimes with text messages they don't get delivered for hours (very rare but it does happen).

You would have been charged for an SMS but if you use your data plan while in the states you are roaming (unless you have Onerate or US Data roaming package). Although, BB compression is high and a few BBM messages hardly use any data.

[burn_baby_burn]

I think another big advantage of BBM for business (or criminals) is security.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Instant communications: BBM is extremely fast. Text messages are incredibly slow unless you're on the same carrier, from what I can tell.

Can send multimedia through it: MMS is outdated, and the ease of sending pictures through BBM has been great for me.

Conferences: Multiple friends in the same conversation has been very useful to me.

Statuses: My friends use the status line to tell us if they're busy in a meeting or at dinner or something. Helpful for planning things or just trying to avoid being annoying.

Seeing if a message is delivered and read: Two separate things that help a lot. If I need an answer quickly, I can see if they're actually at their phone to respond. And just like MSN, you can see when someone is typing a message. I don't get offended if I don't get an answer right away like some people who watch the "name is typing a message" like a hawk.

As a side note, I would browse the internet more on my blackberry if it was faster...EDGE is not exactly great for loading non-mobile versions of sites.

So it’s kinda like Beejive or Skype on anyone else’s phone - good to know you guys have feature parity with us

[Azure]

Originally Posted by burn_baby_burn

I think another big advantage of BBM for business (or criminals) is security.

Exactly why so many government use it. Or don't use it anymore(Saudi Arabia).

[burn_baby_burn]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

So it’s kinda like Beejive or Skype on anyone else’s phone - good to know you guys have feature parity with us

Kinda? Like a type writer is "kinda" like a word processor.

[OilKiller]

sclitheroe, I realize you are trying your best to diss BB's, but those of us who have them love them and that's all there is to it. If you like iPhone or Android, so be it, not sure why you are trying to call out BB's?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by OilKiller

sclitheroe, I realize you are trying your best to diss BB's, but those of us who have them love them and that's all there is to it. If you like iPhone or Android, so be it, not sure why you are trying to call out BB's?

I don't see him as trying to diss Blackberrys at all.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by OilKiller

sclitheroe, I realize you are trying your best to diss BB's, but those of us who have them love them and that's all there is to it. If you like iPhone or Android, so be it, not sure why you are trying to call out BB's?

I’m not at all - in fact I have a BB sitting on my desk here in front of me.

BBM is a fascination I don’t understand though, even as a BB user, with BBM contacts both business and personal. It’s got the same features as any other IM app out there, but it can only communicate with other BB’s. I just don’t get the advantage.

In fact, at work, we all use the Microsoft OCS client on our BB’s, because it means we can chat with mobile users from our computers, or send messages deskside from our phones. MSN messenger accomplishes the same thing for the personal contacts, and lets me reach out to BB users with the app, laptop users, iPhone and Android users via their respective IM clients, etc.

This is the walled garden that I speak of - I cannot for the life of me see how being able to only BBM between phones from one vendor offers any compelling advantage over a more open IM protocol that is supported on PC’s, multiple mobile devices, and in the case of Skype, even some dedicated phone hardware.

Facetime will face the same problem on the iPhone, if Apple doesn’t sufficiently open up the protocol. They claim they will, time will tell if we ever see a facetime implementation for other devices. But if they don’t, they are in the same boat. What good is Facetime when it can only talk to other iPhones?

The value of any network increases exponentially based on the number of nodes that can participate. BBM and Facetime don’t bring that kind of value in their current incarnations. The explosive growth of any kind of IM has always come when the protocol is open, as no one protocol has ever, ever, succeeded in maintaining a monopoly, even regionally.

Security of BBM is one obvious advantage I haven’t mentioned, it’s obviously more secure due to the encryption that other IM clients. For some users maybe that’s an important consideration.

So I’m poking the bear so to speak, but not trying to troll - I learn more about the inner workings of the die hard BB user from the responses here.

Edit: So if I tease about BBM having feature parity with Beejive on an iOS device, it’s because i want to see the comeback that demonstrates what BBM can do that isn’t obvious to me.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

In fact, at work, we all use the Microsoft OCS client on our BB’s, because it means we can chat with mobile users from our computers, or send messages deskside from our phones. MSN messenger accomplishes the same thing for the personal contacts, and lets me reach out to BB users with the app, laptop users, iPhone and Android users via their respective IM clients, etc.

Not to derail the thread but how useful do you actually find OSC and/or MS Communicator? We are about to upgrade to Office 2010 and I keep wondering if communicator will actually be used at all and if adding the ability to contact people on their phones will improve that use.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Not to derail the thread but how useful do you actually find OSC and/or MS Communicator? We are about to upgrade to Office 2010 and I keep wondering if communicator will actually be used at all and if adding the ability to contact people on their phones will improve that use.

It’s pretty neat. For starters, it gives you a secured, full featured client on the desktop - multi-way chat, voice chat, video chat, file transfer etc. Mac and PC clients are first class citizens with equivalent feature sets.

One really, really killer feature is that you can be signed into the desktop and your BB at the same time. When someone IM’s you, it goes to your desktop first. If you don’t pick up the chat there, after 15 seconds or so, the IM goes to your BB. So basically, you IM someone and you are guaranteed they are getting it at their desk or on their phone. A neat trick to tell if someone is at their desk or not is to pay attention to their sentences - if they are capitalized, they are probably on their mobile, and you can adjust your expectations for how much they write accordingly.

A big benefit, of course, is that not all of our staff have BB’s, but this way we can still IM with people that don’t have them, and they can reach us.

In my department at work, I would put the ratio of OCS to BBM communication at about 80:20, and this is in what has been, until just recently, a pure BB shop.

[Yeah_Baby]

I'd like to see FanIn80 and OilKiller square off in Thunderdome.

[browna]

As far as BBM goes, sure it does what other IM clients do, but its just preloaded on any BB. Call it the laziness factor, but wether you're on BIS or BES, if you have a BB you have BBM.

Lots of people I know probably have never used MSN Messenger or Yahoo or Google Talk or whatever in their lives because its a hassle, has to be downloaded, then have to add contacts, and then your contacts have to have the same program. They don't have a hotmail account or a gmail account...a work email and a personal one they never use.

These are also the same people that don't hide or move any icons on their home screens or do any personaliztion other then ringtones.

They just have never seen a need for an external IM client. But give them BBM and they use it and like it.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

It’s pretty neat. For starters, it gives you a secured, full featured client on the desktop - multi-way chat, voice chat, video chat, file transfer etc. Mac and PC clients are first class citizens with equivalent feature sets.

One really, really killer feature is that you can be signed into the desktop and your BB at the same time. When someone IM’s you, it goes to your desktop first. If you don’t pick up the chat there, after 15 seconds or so, the IM goes to your BB. So basically, you IM someone and you are guaranteed they are getting it at their desk or on their phone. A neat trick to tell if someone is at their desk or not is to pay attention to their sentences - if they are capitalized, they are probably on their mobile, and you can adjust your expectations for how much they write accordingly.

A big benefit, of course, is that not all of our staff have BB’s, but this way we can still IM with people that don’t have them, and they can reach us.

In my department at work, I would put the ratio of OCS to BBM communication at about 80:20, and this is in what has been, until just recently, a pure BB shop.

What app do you use on the BB to communicate with OCS? Just normal messaging?

I might have some use for this down the road.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Then why are half of polled Blackberry users ready to switch to another platform in the future

Enough though, we will revisit this topic in a years time.

Whoa, hold on here, unless I'm reading it wrong that poll is talking about which OS they prefer not which smartphone they are getting. Maybe I'm misinterpreting but there's a world of difference to me. Personally I'd much prefer the Iphone in terms of the OS, but having a actual keyboard vastly outweighs my prefered OS in terms of what I'm actually purchasing, so while I might be in the 29% of blackberrys users who want the iPhone OS next, the chance of me changing from my BB to the iPhone is exactly 0%.

There's a lot of people out there like me who prefer a solid keyboard. RIMs done that well enough that the other phone manufacturers have basically conceded that portion of the marketplace to them. That will keep RIM from falling out of the top 3 or even top 2 for the foreseeable future.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Dan02

Whoa, hold on here, unless I'm reading it wrong that poll is talking about which OS they prefer not which smartphone they are getting. Maybe I'm misinterpreting but there's a world of difference to me. Personally I'd much prefer the Iphone in terms of the OS, but having a actual keyboard vastly outweighs my prefered OS in terms of what I'm actually purchasing, so while I might be in the 29% of blackberrys users who want the iPhone OS next, the chance of me changing from my BB to the iPhone is exactly 0%.

There's a lot of people out there like me who prefer a solid keyboard. RIMs done that well enough that the other phone manufacturers have basically conceded that portion of the marketplace to them. That will keep RIM from falling out of the top 3 or even top 2 for the foreseeable future.

You can't have a Blackberry running iOS or Android. Same for other phones.

I think the general population understands this and realizes that if you want a certain OS you are restricted to certain types of hardware.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Azure

What app do you use on the BB to communicate with OCS? Just normal messaging?

I might have some use for this down the road.

It’s a Microsoft supplied OCS client. It does integrate with messaging, so you see your OCS IM’s in your inbox along with your other stuff.

MS also makes a MSN Messenger client that looks very similar, but works on their public MSN network.

And of course, BES makes it a breeze to deploy