Back at 2010’s Blackberry Developer Conference (DEVCON), RIM announced a new social platform: Blackberry Messenger (BBM) Social Platform. Today they have made the platform an open beta service for the first time, allowing developers everywhere to get their hands on it.
BBM Social Platform allows developers to introduce features of RIM’s popular messaging service into their own apps, for instance embedding chats, BBM statuses and even file transfers within other applications. We know you’re thinking it, but this doesn’t mean just yet that you’ll be able to use BBM on your iPhone or Android handsets, though it certainly seems like a first step in that direction.
RIM have kept Blackberry Messenger under tight wraps for a long time now, but it finally seems as though they are loosening their grip and seeing the potential for their application in the wider mobile market. BBM Social Platform seems like a great idea, it would be especially useful for sharing applications or instructions directly from the app you’re in, rather than having to come out of it and go into BBM to type to a friend etc.
At present, the platform is only available for Java developers, though RIM are working hard to release a Blackberry WebWorks version soon!