Remember those horrible BBM lounge parties? Companies can waste lots of money trying to be cool.
With BlackBerry Messenger 6.0 now available for download through App World, users around the world will be upgrading and able to leverage the functionality of the BBM Social Platform that developers have implemented. To recap, the BBM Social APIs give developers access to the following:
- Access to user’s BBM contact list
- Ability to leverage BBM for chat in-app
- Update status and avatar
- Use BBM as a data pipe
With these features in mind, there’s plenty you can do with the BBM Social Platform to create new and innovative apps. Here are 5 apps that would be cool using these new APIs.
1. Virtual Gift Giving
Facebook Gifts was a really popular service and millions of gifts were given and many purchased for friends. The reason it was so popular is probably the basic premise of gift giving which is “it’s the thought that counts.” Sure, all of us would prefer a real chocolate cake over a virtual chocolate cake, but the fact that your friend spent $1 to say she’s thinking about you means something and is appreciated. The same concept would be huge on BBM. It would be huge for both flirting and animosity. You could send your BBM friends both nice gifts (eg an ice cream cone) or mean gifts (eg a brown paper bag for their face).
2. Music Sharing App
The BBM Social APIs allow you to use BBM to send data. One of the obvious ways this should manifest itself is a music sharing app. How many times have you seen someone on your contact list with their status set as the song they’re listening to? It’s very popular and it would be great if I could click on that link and download the song my friend is listening to. It may or may not work for the App World guidelines, you would have to look into that and maybe use some sneaky wording.
3. Dating App
People love to share their PINs and meet people. If you’ve been to the BlackBerryCool Facebook page lately, you may have noticed there’s a ton of people sharing their PINs and trying to meet each other. Even App World is filled with reviews with people leaving their PINs in the hopes that someone would add them randomly and it will blossom into a love affair. Now that you can access the BBM contact list, chat and update statuses, why not leverage that as a dating app?
4. Photovine for BBM
Photovine is a photography app by Google that lets you create a vine (sort of like an album) that people can add photos to. As people add photos to vines, they tell their own stories about the moments, images, and ideas that define our lives in a way that’s social, creative, and fun. It would be awesome to see all of this done over BBM. You can simply start the vine, and request your BBM friends begin adding to it.
5. Scavenger Hunt app
With the ability to share video, pictures, files, audio and location over BBM, you have all the right ingredients for a scavenger hunt app. The way the app would work is that you boot it up, find friends on BBM who want to play, and the app sets goals for each of you to do. The app could tell both of you to take a picture of a bottle of water, and then audio record yourself asking someone what their favorite food is. The first person to finish the race wins.
