The team at RIM has rounded up some of the many new and long time titles in App World that are now making use of the new BlackBerry Messenger 6.0 and its new Social Platform SDK APIs. This list is in no way extensive and some of the apps are still rolling out but its a good place to start. It includes some of the apps we have already mentioned on BerryReview and including the upcoming augmented reality Wikitude BlackBerry OS 7 app. Personally I am checking out Backgammon King when I have time today. I have always wanted to play Backgammon with friends instead of random strangers.
Each app below has an accompanying message from the developer explaining what they thought of BBM 6 and the social platform it is packing. Its great to see such a positive response from BlackBerry developers from games to business app developers.
Backgammon King (App World) – One of Magmic’s top games is now social. If you want to play against a friend , challenge a BBM contact to a friendly game or send an invite to download and start the fun.
“Players have always been able to play Backgammon King against real opponents but playing against your friends took a lot of time and effort,” said Troy Johnson, Director Strategic Initiatives, Magmic. “Your BBM contacts are your friends and BBM 6 is making it incredibly easy to share Backgammon King with them and invite them to play in real-time. The ease of access to our product, the ease of sharing and the ease of player engagement are each major breakthroughs. Combine those attributes of BBM 6 with Magmics’ industry leading in-game chat design and you have an incredibly entertaining experience. Trash talking your best friend over a game of backgammon has never been easier and more fun. It’s no exaggeration to say, for Backgammon King, BBM 6 is a real game changer.”
“Players have always been able to play Backgammon King against real opponents but playing against your friends took a lot of time and effort,” said Troy Johnson, Director Strategic Initiatives, Magmic. “Your BBM contacts are your friends and BBM 6 is making it incredibly easy to share Backgammon King with them and invite them to play in real-time. The ease of access to our product, the ease of sharing and the ease of player engagement are each major breakthroughs. Combine those attributes of BBM 6 with Magmics’ industry leading in-game chat design and you have an incredibly entertaining experience. Trash talking your best friend over a game of backgammon has never been easier and more fun. It’s no exaggeration to say, for Backgammon King, BBM 6 is a real game changer.”
Foursquare (App World) – Foursquare is all about helping you find new ways to explore the city. Earn points and unlock badges, profiles and status updates over BBM.
"RIM is a fantastic partner. We’re thrilled to be working with them to provide a better experience to millions of foursquare users around the world by integrating foursquare with BBM," said Holger Luedorf, VP of Mobile and Partnerships for foursquare.
Huffington Post (App World) – The Huffington Post, a leader in implementing social features to reach and interact with its network of readers and bloggers, depends on the BBM Social Platform to continue to reach its audiences, even when they are on the go.
“The Huffington Post, a leader in implementing social features to reach and interact with its network of readers and bloggers, integrates the BlackBerry Social Platform to create a place where our users can continue to engage in up-to-the-minute news stories, blogs, and analysis,” said Paul Berry, CTO of the Huffington Post Media Group. “As a BBM connected app, we make it simple for our readers to easily share and discuss the news. BBM 6 allows The Huffington Post to continue to reach its audience in a new way when they are on the go, and without having to compromise on the quality of their experience."
Jingu (App World) – Jingu is an application for BBM only and it is focused on enriching the BBM communication experience and the BBM community with the addition of social chat, photo sharing, avatars, and more.
“Jingu users are engaging with BlackBerry Messenger in an exciting new way,” said Pankaj Gogia, Founder, Jingu Apps. “With BBM 6, ease of use is greatly enhanced with capabilities like updating your BBM profile picture directly from within the application. Jingu is dedicated to creating social networking applications built on the BlackBerry Messenger Social Platform that
leverage the new capabilities of BBM 6 and bring enriched and vastly immersive experiences to end users.”
Pocket Ants (App World) – You are the king of the ANTS- feeding, burning, fighting, and racing your ants. Now with BBM you can invite all your friends to rule an ant colony too.
"One of the keys to viral game sales is to allow users to easily invite their friends to join them in playing the games they love,” said Keith Pichelman, CEO, Concrete Software. “Integrating BBM into Pocket Ants has allowed the game to do just that."
Poynt (App World) – Find businesses, people, restaurants, movies, events and weather info. Going out for dinner with friends? Find a great spot and share it.
“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t immediately react to the ‘chime’ of BBM,” said Margaret Glover-Campbell, VP Marketing & PR of Poynt Corporation. “Being able to leverage BBM 6 to share search results provides a tremendous advantage to our BlackBerry smartphone user base who can now easily and quickly coordinate their social activities. The ability to share the app download directly within BBM is also exciting for us, given the immediacy and viral nature of the platform. From a development perspective, we see tremendous possibilities for future integration around connecting people while they’re on the go.”
PowWow Study (App World) – PowWow uses BBM integration to provide real time social event coordination. Connected BBM 6 users are directly invited and notified of events that are created using Powwow. With PowWow the latest information is made available.
“PowWow uses BBM 6 integration to enable real time social event coordination,” said Kathryn Lahrs, Founder, Lahrs Apps. “Users are directly invited and notified of events that are created with our application. With PowWow, the latest information is available and BBM chats can quickly be started if any further communication is desired. Through BBM 6 PowWow users can share their location information, which is displayed in BlackBerry Maps. There is also an option to check your contact’s availability directly from their calendars and to create an event with this information; this is a very useful tool in event planning and saves time in the process.”
ScoreMobile (App World) – Up-to-the-minute sports scores, players, stats, betting odds and more. You can invite BBM friends into the app to chat about the latest sports banter, share scores and more.
“Following sports is inherently social – fans are extremely passionate, and like to trash talk, comment, and generally share their opinions on whatever they’re watching,” says Dale Fallon, VP Digital Products, Score Media. “By integrating BBM 6 functionality right into the ScoreMobile experience, we enable our users to enjoy the game with their friends even when they’re not together. In a nutshell, BBM 6 integration allows sports fans to be social without having to leave the ScoreMobile app.”
Telmap Navigator (App World) – Telmap is a mobile location companion which now integrates with BBM to bring significantly enriched communication and interactions with users’ real-time locations.
“Telmap, a global location-based services leader, is very focused on serving all users’ needs by constantly enriching and optimizing their on-the-go experiences,” said Motti Kushnir, Telmap Chief Marketing Officer. “The integration between BBM 6 and the Telmap Mobile Location Companion significantly enriches conversations and interactions through BBM with users’ real-time locations. Telmap views this integration as an important pillar of our vision to provide a richer, more comprehensive experience to our users. We work hard to integrate our application with popular and useful platforms like BBM, to ensure added value to users who can now add location information to their interactions with friends."
Unvired (App World) – Unvired Workflow by SAP allows users to take action on the workflow documents directly from their BB. The BBM integration allows sharing of screen shots/pictures with colleagues during collaboration.
“Unvired Workflow for SAP enables approval of SAP workflow requests directly from the BlackBerry smartphone. Unvired leverages the BlackBerry message list and BBM to provide a familiar BlackBerry user experience,” said Srinivasan Subramanian, CEO, Indience InfoSystems Pvt Ltd. “The BBM platform has been smartly integrated to enable employees to collaborate seamlessly. If the user has some queries while approving the workflow, they can BBM their colleague or Manager, transfer a screenshot of the workflow item and clarify. They can then approve or reject the workflow request. The BBM chat can also be emailed to maintain an audit trail. The BBM integration with Unvired ensures quick turnaround and collaboration between employees, not just for workflow but other usages like checking discounts for a customer, escalating a customer grievance and much more.”
Wikitude (Not Available Yet – BlackBerry OS 7) – Wikitude allows you to experience your BBM in a new way. By using the camera, simply pan around your mobile to contacts in Augmented Reality. You may even find new friends in your vicinity – a truly engaging and immersive experience.
"BBM 6 is the underlying mobile social network making Wikitude on the BlackBerry platform a very unique experience. An augmented reality (AR) browser with millions of interesting places is already a very compelling and new proposition, but bringing it to life with millions of people who can chat, meet and share in an AR environment has the potential to revolutionize how we interact with one another. With BBM 6 and Wikitude preloaded on upcoming BlackBerry smartphones our AR browser will be truly going social for the very first time," says Andy Gstoll, CMO of Wikitude.
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