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    Thursday, July 28, 2011

    Reuter site - RIM embeds its BBM chat in work and play apps

    This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
    http://mobile.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE76R0JM20110728

    RIM embeds its BBM chat in work and play apps

    Thu, Jul 28 00:05 AM EDT

    By Alastair Sharp

    TORONTO (Reuters) - Research In Motion wants software developers to use its popular instant messaging tool within their applications to enable friends to play games, share and discuss news, and decide where they will eat dinner.

    Describing BlackBerry Messenger -- widely known as BBM -- as one of the world's largest mobile social networks, RIM on Thursday took the covers off an update that it hopes will prod more developers to write code for its devices.

    The company's BlackBerry App World pales in comparison with those for Apple and Google, which garner much more interest from independent developers.

    Some 45 million people use BBM -- which allows BlackBerry users with data plans to instantly pass text messages, pictures and other files without incurring charges from their network carrier -- and 70 percent of them use it daily.

    "That lends itself to a different type of experience," said Alistair Mitchell, RIM's vice president for the BBM platform and integrated services. "We're trying to transpose that so it's available to our third-party developers globally."

    RIM's director of developer relations, Mike Kirkup, said the simplest use of the updated BBM tool would require just three lines of code while developers could, with a bit more work, choose to route all their traffic through RIM's servers.

    Kirkup said developers that integrate BBM could expect existing users to spend more time on the app and for it to encourage more viral distribution.

    "For every developer, getting people into your app more and getting more people to find your app are the two major problems they stay awake thinking about every single day," he said.

    Among the apps making first use of BBM integration are location services Foursquare and Poynt, news website Huffington Post and augmented reality browser Wikitude.

    "This is a good transition for the company but it's not without competition from competitors big and small," said Josh Martin, an analyst of apps at Strategy Analytics.

    Online social network Facebook boosts more than half a billion users. Google, whose Android software for smartphones has stolen share from BlackBerry, quickly garnered a huge following with its Google+ social product launched last month and offers its own Google Talk chat application.

    And Apple will soon launch iMessage, a tool similar to BBM for use on iPhones, iPads and some iPods.

    "Is the next BBM alone the answer -- certainly not -- but taken with other offerings it could create the foundation for an improved experience," Mitchell said.

    RIM bought social gaming company Scoreloop in June to help it expand Messenger and enable more interaction in existing mobile games.

    Reuter site - Skyfire unveils app for Flash videos on iPhone

    This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
    http://mobile.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE76R4X320110728

    Skyfire unveils app for Flash videos on iPhone

    Thu, Jul 28 12:06 PM EDT

    HELSINKI (Reuters) - Private-equity backed video technology firm Skyfire, best known for its mobile browser, has unveiled an application for watching Flash videos on Apple's iPhones.

    Apple has been a strong opponent of Adobe's Flash technology, criticizing its power management, among other things, and it has embraced a newer set of tools for building web applications known as HTML 5.

    Many Internet pages running applications using Flash technology have had to create special versions for Apple devices.

    Users of Skyfire's new VideoQ application can send links to videos from their browsers to watch them in the app, which Skyfire hopes to build into a video entertainment hub.

    VideoQ will at first be available in North America only, but Skyfire plans to expand its reach later.

    California-based Skyfire, whose investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and Trinity Ventures, said its mobile browser has been downloaded 8 million times so far.

    (Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Will Waterman)

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