Blackberry Messenger shuts down due to scarcity of users
BlackBerry Messenger, also known as BBM, the service that introduced the concept of mobile chat, is shutting down after a decline in popularity.
It was once the crown jewel of BlackBerry’s phone service and during its heyday played a pivotal role in the 2011 London riots owing to the encrypted nature of the messages.
CMW, the firm that owns BBM, announced its plans in April, giving users a month to migrate.
They wrote: “Instant messaging is a very fluid and competitive market. Since 2016 we have tried our best to compete in this market and launch many new features and content that we had hoped would grow the BBM user base”.
“Despite all of our efforts, we found that the network effect of the market leaders is getting stronger and we have been squeezed out of user preferences.”
It continued: “We poured our hearts into making this a reality, and we are proud of what we have built to date.
“The technology industry, however, is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on.”
Fear not, though – if you still own a Blackberry, CMW have assured us that it “will not have any effect on the BBM service operating on BB10 and BBOS devices, as that service is operated by BlackBerry Limited and will continue.”
BlackBerry Messenger was initially very popular when it first launched on the company’s own devices in 2005.
However, the arrival of the iPhone and Android smartphones gradually dented BlackBerry’s popularity. Many users started using WhatsApp and other messaging platforms that were not stuck to BlackBerry.
BBM was broadened to Android and iOS in 2013 but it was not enough to ensure its survival.
RIP BBM. Thanks for the memories.
