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My favorite phone of all time is the BlackBerry Bold 9000. Unlike the iPhone 3G, which proposed a revolutionary design when it was announced a month later, in 2008, the BlackBerry Bold was not very bright. But there was one thing that the iPhone 3G did not have: BlackBerry Messenger. This has become a defining feature on BlackBerry devices and has forever changed the way phone users engage in business and casual conversations. Today, after years of decreasing use and financial difficulties of the BlackBerry RIM developer, BlackBerry Messenger is going away for good.
BlackBerry Messenger (better known as BBM) was one of the first instant messaging platforms to arrive on mobile devices in 2005. Users could choose to use a BBM account associated with their unique BlackBerry PIN code rather than sending a standard text message. BBM has managed to transfer traditional desktop messaging to the tiny computers in our pockets. It was stunning.
It was not perfect, though. BBM looked like one of the first versions of Facebook's WhatsApp. The text bubbles were cluttered, the user interface seemed cumbersome when navigating between messages and, if your BlackBerry's scroll wheel was locked, good luck scrolling through the messages. Despite BBM's weaknesses, it became the app that defined my early-high school experience for two main reasons: group discussions and a striking similarity to desktop instant messaging platforms like AIM.
I had my Bold 9000 in 2008. I was in grade 10 and, like everyone else, my life was centered on my phone. My friends and I texted every day and every night. We all had BlackBerries. Some people have received from their parents new devices as birthday gifts, others have used old recycled phones. Thanks to BBM, these individual text messages quickly turned into elaborate and endless group discussions. We have become a perfect group of new BlackBerry users. RIM has already made a name among businesses and governments, but it has since begun to reach a crucial new audience: young consumers. In 2013, BBM had 60 million active users per month. My friends and I were among the first.
It sounds ridiculous to say today, while WhatsApp has more than a billion users and that group discussions are part of our daily lives, but at the time, it was not a big deal. was sensational. I did not have to wait for my return home to connect to MSN Messenger and continue talking to my friends.
It was also through the BBM group discussion that I started my first relationship with the high school. We became close thanks to constant group discussions with our friends and we finally broke up into direct messages. Yes, in 2008, I made the BBM equivalent of sliding in the DMs. Every time I saw the flashing green light of my daring turn red, sign of a new message, I felt that little burst of heat in the pit of my stomach. It was ridiculous and uplifting. At age 15, there was no difference between my physical relationship with this person and our life on BBM. On the contrary, they felt even more intimate and safe.
I was not the only person to have a similar opinion of BBM. First messages on the Crackberry The forum is full of people trying to understand why BBM thought it best to use standard text messages. "It's like an exclusive club" Crackberry The member meditated. "It gives SMS an old look," added another.
Ironically, one of the most cited reasons Crackberry The defense of BBM's superiority is also one of the reasons my relationship failed. BBM helped create one of the most distressing messaging features that still exist today: read receipts.
The reading defendants were introduced with BBM in 2005. When a message was sent, a tiny letter "D" appeared next to it. When this same message was read, the "D" would become an "R." People thought that it was a genius. Colleagues knew when someone was available and could have an instant answer. But the confirmation of reading function came back to bite me, a person who often reads a message and responds hours later.
In 2011, Urban Dictionary added the term "rbomb" to specifically address a cultural shift on platforms such as BBM. People did not want the other person to know when a message was being read. Several Reddit messages asking how to deal with "reading anxiety" began to appear. This year alone Digital Dazed published an article on how reading receipts can affect people's mental health. Reading receipts haunted me for years after I left BBM. I just reactivated them via iMessage recently on an experimental basis. The only difference between my anxiety from time to time is not having to deal with an angry flashing red light at the top of my phone. The BlackBerry, via BBM, has asked for attention.
Despite everything that made it sometimes frustrating to use BBM, it gave me something that I miss today: a private community. BBM felt like a little oasis in a growing number of social networks and sites that wanted everything to be bigger. Sites such as Habbo Hotel and Twitter have helped create the Internet we know today, all based on giving people the opportunity to talk to each other. But BBM was different. Group discussions provide emotional support and closeness that other sites can not replicate. The fact that it is on your phone, something that already seems incredibly personal because it lives in your hand, has only added to that feeling. Today, at a time when the Internet is too noisy, I reflect nostalgically on these early BBM discussion groups.
New York MagazineMax Read says that group discussions "make the Internet even more fun". We get the impression that many of us are struggling to come back to a place that reminds us of older forums and quieter messaging platforms. This has never stopped being BBM for me. This is the platform that has allowed me to fall in love with cell phones and the thing that has encouraged me to share stupid memes. It's the service that has shown me that small online experiences are usually more fun.
In 2013, an investigation report of The Globe and Mail BBM has suggested a plan to help save RIM, a once-booming business that could not keep up with Apple and Android. One executive proposed to "push mobile operators to adopt" BBM as a total replacement for traditional text messaging. The plan never started. BBM dragged a bit, eventually becoming an optional messaging platform on Apple and Android devices, but never managed to recover the cultural cache that it once held.
I still use group discussions today with my friends. I am in about four years. One lives on Facebook Messenger, others use iMessage or standard SMS sending. These friends also participate in their own group discussions, on iPhone, as well as on various Android phones. No one is using BlackBerry Messenger, but this has created the very basis of how the world is still communicating today.
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