There is no doubt that human beings have always sought for ways to make their lives better right from prehistoric times, from the making of crude implements with stones to the present day high tech gadgets.
We have evolved as mankind in the use of various media to communicate, articulate and even to make clear our inner thoughts as most times we are meaning-seeking creatures who want to understand our environment, hence we chat. We have come to use words or texts as a vital means of giving orders or requests to people, and eventually make things happen in our lives. One very good instance of how we can communicate is through our phones. In the contemporary Nigerian society, it is a boon.
Before mobile telephony in the country, one could travel for hours just to say hello to a family member or very dear friend. Then came the arrival of mobile phones in Nigeria; the entire country greeted it with euphoria and after that came reality — the calls rates and other associated services were just unbelievable in terms of cost. I remember in those days when I was growing up with my parents, my dad had a maxim he always drummed in our ears each time he sends us on errands to make purchase of any goods. He always ends it with “you have to buy from the cheapest market” and you dare not disobey. I guess that was what happened. People had to look for cheaper and secure ways to pass their thoughts across. And instant messaging service was it.
It became the in thing with apps like BBM, the premier messaging service from BlackBerry. Other rivals like WhatsApp and WeChat joined later on in the race for the market share. However in Nigeria, BBM triumphed over others as it led the pack and within a short while Computer Village (Ikeja-Lagos) was a holy land of some sort for BlackBerry, with so many people trooping in and out to buy one device only—The BlackBerry- and the reason—BBM! If you didn’t have a blackberry, you weren’t cool. In addition, the term “Ping or Pin number” became synonymous with class, trust Nigerians. Even though it was ubiquitous—I mean just try commute in a public space like a bus and watch how every and anyone you turn to inside the vehicle is glued to his or her BlackBerry phone like the effect a magnet would have on metal. Some persons, nevertheless, were not interested. A friend of mine once declared “I don’t like flowing with the crowd.” But that was him.
Nonetheless, many people (including me) love BBM especially because of its capacity to push gist on different levels in social mobile networking, its ability to motivate real active discussions, its privacy plus controls and message-in-progress notices, and the immediacy with which delivered and read statuses are deployed. These attributes have altogether made users experience unforgettable.
As a trailblazer in the mobile instant messaging service however, it failed to keep up with the speed of other competitors especially WhatsApp partly because of its resistance to open up its apps to users on other platforms. But having realized its mistake, the Ontario based company last year, opened up the service to phones powered by Google Inc.’s very popular Android operating system and Apple’s iOS platforms.
Then came the big news (at least for me) last week. According to Mike Segar of Reuters, BlackBerry’s CEO John Chen at the company’s Security Summit, on Thursday last week announced that its popular messaging system BlackBerry Messenger or BBM would finally be on Windows 8 platform by 31 July, and truly it was.
“We are intent on bringing the most popular application experiences to Windows Phone, and with BBM, we are pleased to bring many of its top features to the Windows Phone platform,” said Bryan Biniak, Vice President and General Manager, Developer Experience, Microsoft.
“As the popularity of BBM continues to grow, we are thrilled to have the opportunity to expand its availability to the Windows Phone community.” John Sims, President Global Enterprise Services at BlackBerry added.
Initially, the smartphone company released 10,000 slots for a private beta channel that was filled within 24hrs. Now, its deployment to the Windows Phone platform means the service is now available on all major smartphone platforms, making it a more practicable choice for those customers that are considering using it as a messaging app for communication.
So people, go for it, swipe your Windows Phone to your app store and download. It’s free! But I must tell you though, the features available for now are the BBM Chats, BBM Groups, Find Friends, BBM Feeds and ‘Pin’ to Start. Additional features will be updated later as this is the very first version.
Regardless, I am pleased to have BBM on my Nokia Lumia. Thank you BlackBerry!
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