According to an announcement from Research In Motion, App developers will now be able to integrate BlackBerry Messenger into their apps as the company has released the BlackBerry Messenger Social platform SDK (software development kit) 1.0 for BlackBerry Java final version. Users can now expect a new class of apps which will make better use of BlackBerry Messenger’s social interaction features.
BlackBerry Messenger is already used by 45 million people across the world and the platform is adding two million users every month. Irrespective of what apps are built —multimedia, gaming, location-based services (LBS), VOIP, video, or commerce — users can chat with others, and can share updates with their contacts in real time. The new social interactions may include getting invitations from people who are not currently on the contact lists of users.
The company has been working on BBM Social since September, with which people will be able to group chat, transfer files, share apps with their contacts, and make changes to their BlackBerry Messenger profile. There have been unconfirmed reports of it being available on Android and iOS platform as well, but this remains a rumour so far.
There are huge communities built around BlackBerry Messenger alone, and it appears to be a good move from Research In Motion to let BBM be integrated into apps. The lack of connectivity with other chat application platforms is still a problem, though this too is likely to be addressed soon.