My BBM Pin – ######

So I slept last night and presumably woke up in 2009. People were sharing their BBM Pins. I found it interesting. Apparently I installed BBM. I had been exposed to this instant messenger. No I did not or do not own blackberry. But the firm for which I was working last evidently had given me a corporate blackberry, that made my life miserable and sad. (All thanks to the minutely emails).

A well-received advertisement campaign never defines the success of a product. Similarly, the arrival of BBM on Android and iPhone may have pulled in a large number of users, but the humongous 10 million downloads in 24 hours is not necessarily an indicator that users are happy, satisfied and would continue using the app, that was once a BlackBerry device exclusive. While there are fundamental differences between downloading an application and using a application; we often tend to overlook that. I have been quite a satisfied customer/consumer of widely used instant messaging (IM) tool WhatsApp and never looked for other IM apps flocking the iTunes App Store; but I eagerly waited for BBM to come to App store. The app in spite of BlackBerry's sagging fortunes, retained much of its iconic appeal.

The problem with BBM is that it has been 2 years behind the schedule application in the word of cross-platform IM services. While many believe that BBM might be able to compete with other cross platform IMs like hangout or WhatsApp, I seriously doubt it. Why do I doubt ? Yes here are my some of the reasons.

1. The flaw in the invitation model – The PIN based model is highly flawed, for the simple reason, that while it maintains the privacy aspect it does adds an additional layer of complexity. Means look at the iMessage.  A common belief is that a BBM PIN, at times, is shared when you don't want to give your number but want to stay in touch and maintain communication with a set of people. In such cases I would recommend Google Hangouts (Google Talk) instead, which I believe Android users would be quite used to. You can take their email address and add them to your Hangouts. Here you also have an authority to choose and reject. Another purported BBM advantage washed away. Anyone of us may come across situations where we want to establish a communication with a person, but may feel a little shy in approaching and asking for a BBM PIN - he may share, may be not. A relation may gets spoiled before it is made. WhatsApp is a much better choice here. I mean c’mon we leave in 2013 and not in 2008
   
   
   
2. In an IM application what matters the most is the appearance of previous messages in a chat window. Before you make a reply, you often want to read the recent messages exchanged between the two or more than two in case of a group chat. There are more messages in a WhatsApp chat window than in a BBM chat window. Moreover in BBM there is cluttered display picture next to every message, which takes most of space unnecessarily. BlackBerry appears to want us to write without reading, while it is more important to first read and then write.
   
   
   
3. Emoji is a new language of communication. It has been widely adopted by Android devices and well as iOS devices. Instant messaging apps have almost dozens of emoji icons to reflect much of your moods and behavior. On the other hand BBM has a limited stock of emoji icons
   
   
   
4. Of all the nonsense stuff existent in the world which are deemed to be non-existential is the PING! button on BBM. It reminds me of Yahoo Messenger and it almost looks a redundant feature to me.
   
   
   
5. Today, when most of the people own more than one device (phone, tablets etc) and prefer the convenience of using an app on multiple devices, BlackBerry released the BBM app in a way that confines users to use one BBM ID on one device at a time. The same issue is with WhatsApp. A WhatsApp account can only be verified with one number, on one device. Being a late participant in the race, BlackBerry could have got an edge over WhatsApp by making the BBM app work across devices. Though it never happened. Google hangouts is the one which has real advantages on this.

Despite writing it does not mean that I dislike BBM, it has been a great app on BlackBerry and brings much of it to Android and iOS, but then the Smartphone world has evolved much faster than BlackBerry could and BBM for Android and iOS is an indicator. Many new BBM users I know have already uninstalled the app, disappointed by BBM. If and when BlackBerry brings voice and video calling to BBM for Android (and iPhone), the scales could tilt a little. Till then it might lie idle in the social folder of my iPhone.