Perhaps you’ve noticed that apps aren’t exactly flying off the virtual shelves in BlackBerry’s App World store, like they are in Apple’s App Store. The store is hard to navigate and there’s confusion about several of the apps, are the main complaints we’re hearing (along with memory issues). And RIM hopes to alleviate some of those problems with the launch of its own social network for BlackBerry users tomorrow, we’re told.
The network, called MyBlackBerry, gives device owners a social profile where they can share opinions on their favorite apps, accessories as well as tips and tricks they use on their devices. More importantly, they can also vent about all of these things with fellow users, and RIM will be there to listen. The whole thing looks more like a bulletin board than what you might consider to be a traditional social network nowadays, but that’s probably a good idea to streamline it and make it all about information.
The site will be personalized based on what actual BlackBerry device you have, we’re told. So you won’t see loads of information about the BlackBerry Storm, if you don’t have that model.
We haven’t seen the main profile pages, but I’d hope there’d be a way to share what your personal favorite apps are (there is a site-wide top apps column in the left-hand side of the navigation). That would be a bit like the third-party AppsFire which just launched to share your favorite iPhone apps, and make them more social.
Overall, this seems like a pretty good idea, one that maybe even Apple should steal to let iPhone users talk about their apps. At the very least, it will be a good place to vent about issues.
MyBlackBerry will be live tomorrow.
+1 to RIM for the effort, but please! Most BB users are corporate users. Most BB users don’t want to mix personal social networking with their work life. RIM needs to stop trying to be Apple, and focus on what their customers want. Social networking isn’t it!
RIM never tried to be Apple and knows what they cater and who they cater, rather the fact is Apple trying its best to enter the Enterprise market but still haven’t been successful to. BlackBerry comes up with great ideas to manifest its own growth along with its user..simple idea..simple explanation..needn’t think beyond
RIM has been riding the business market for years now. Give me one great, original idea that RIM has taken to market since the emergence of the iphone?
First again it was an Apple to Orange comparison back then to compare a Blackberry to an iPhone coz back then BB was only limited to Enterprise market and iPhone when launched always targeted and cashed on Consumer market. RIM, only an year and half back started growing to expand and enter Consumer Markets. BOLD was the first phone internationally launched and has been an outseller in various countries, not just in Enterprise but in Consumer market as well.
For that matter I dont think APPLE has done any revolution with iPhone, they always had an outstanding OS interface with MAC and have simply put it in its phone…Regarding touchscreen, there had been so many HP etc PC in the market in 2006 with touch technology and APPLE then just combined two concepts and got an iPhone out. And what has Apple done from 2006-2009…still getting features in which was pointed back in 2006 that iphone didnt have then which even a simple Samsung phone has. Slow I mus say
Crowdsourcing the listening, eh?
The biggest reason that many blackberry users don’t have a ton of Apps on their phones is due to the fact that Blackberry’s memory management sucks. Even with a micro-sd card for pictures, etc., if I install memory intensive apps, I start losign things like call logs, etc. I’ve been super, super selective on what to install and what not to install because of that.
i have the aerize card loader from crackberry.com, it doesnt load apps from bb appworld but if i can find the app somewhere else i can install the program on my 8gb mem card, luckily i got this before too many apps because i had to uninstall then reinstall apps to the card but i have a place now for almost unlimited app.you can save themes there too, over all its the best 9.99 i have spent on my bb bold
are you sure that works?
I have just downloaded this, wanted something like this for ages, It shows me I have 67 applications, awesome, going to spend my day off saving all my apps to my mem card. Jason, It has a trial, try it M8. it will expand your BB no end.
They are becoming too consumer-oriented, aren’t they?
RIM has to keep up with everyone else and its OS and apps are getting a little stale.
Is this is a social network or a forum? Seems like the later. In any case, Im not sure this is the solution for a broken app buying experience. I’d imagine that most blackberry users are already speaking publicly about their BB experiences, maybe BB would be better off aggregating these and focusing on building a better experience rather broadening it.
This is a really great idea…something Apple hasn’t really done, well or at all. This shows that RIM is really leading the way for how much they care about their users, unlike apple who dont really care so long as they sell iPhones.
How much you care about your users tends to reflect in the overall quality of the product… Blackberry is not doing this out of kindness, lol.
RIM is slowly dying. Apple iPhone is selling like the Motorola Razor back in the days when it first came out.
RIM needs to get its priority straight, it can going to consumer space because Blackberry has been branded for business people. is going to consumer space because it wants to expand it business operations, but if that was the case they need to introduce a separate brand to distinguish itself from the mindset that people have that Blackberry is only for business people.
is like McDonald starting a pizza delivery service. on paper, is sounds like good idea because you are expanding into a new market, but realistically it just wont work
I wouldn’t say RIM is dying. The enterprise is nothing like the consumer space… incumbency really matters as does durability, ease of remote service, and an evolutionary upgrade path so that less technical users are not alienated by new models.
@BingDevelop – How is it not working when the pearl and curve devices were supposed to be consumer devices and they have been around for a couple of years now and they are still selling?
At my place of employment, everybody carries Curves. I wouldn’t call it a consumer device.
+1 for effort. the use of “MY” can be a good sign torwards the social networking personalization space. BingD your right about branding. if they want a social network instead of a forum they will have to get a new domain name. they got a 150 million dollar mobile venture fund that is doing nothing for them. a multimillion dollar wanna find a killer mobile app that does not exist. future battles of digital mobile media is not about the hardware, nor the software….the future of the internet and mobile is about the “location” of everything. “WHERE YOUR @” is everything.
Well When Mcdonald started with Pizza Puff…everybody made same comments but in due time…Acceptance came in……so a wrong analogy to say so
will they tie it to facebook & myspace as well ?
that would be smart…
a way to comment on the app’s once that gets synced to all your accounts…
also supporting OpenID would be a good thing…
regards
John Jones
I believe that they will, makes total sense rather than trying to manage multiple message boards.
Heres an idea: scrape all the data from the forums at crackberry to give MyBlackberry a good starting point…just kidding.
forums.crackberry.com has been addressing these issues in the RIM community for years now.
@Bryan, I was thinking the exact same thing. When I was reading the article I thought, why don’t they just go to the crackberry.com forums.
They should have created an official BlackBerry Venting group for Facebook. That would have saved tens of thousands of dollars. I wish my budget were that big to throw at experimental ideas.
RIM is not dying, even it beats Apple on the market. And yes, at first BB users are business people, but along the time, not all BB users are business people. Rite now I can say that BB is business, social networking, internet, phone in one single device.
And this MyBlackBerry is a good idea for me, coz with this, the can gather information about what their users want, complain or whatsoever. Maybe with this information, they can increase their services.
How do I know that not all business people use BB? Coz 50% of my customer aren’t business people, but the use BB for socializing, connect to their family easily. thx.
i use my iphone .
I wonder if Blackberry have missed a trick here. I sometimes think strategists get so focused on one idea, i.e. “App store is not working, let’s make a brilliant social network and we’ll get more downloads” rather than thinking why the idea in the first place, i.e. “How do we make the Blackberry experience more sticky by getting people engaged in their Blackberry user experience?”
I shared this reflection in a blog post in response to this article. http://daverein...ssed-the-point/
I think you might be missing the fact that this would have been started to be developed long before the App Store was actually launched.
The main problem is that the blackberry app store isn’t displayed as nicely as apple’s app store. The programs just aren’t aesthetically pleasing and in typical, non-apple, fashion they’re hard to use.
Have your heard about Muttr.com ? Seems to be growing pretty quickly… It allows the user to speak freely and say whatever is on their mind, anonymously, and it feels great doing so!
Muttr is straight to the point, simple, eye pleasing, and extremely easy to use. It will remain my choice for quite some time now! Trust me there’s plenty of things I will always need to vent about lol.