Today, August 1st, is the 10th anniversary of the birth of BBM. The man who “invented” BBM Gary Klassen was sitting at his desk, nervously twirling his thumbs as hundreds of people started downloading and using BlackBerry Messenger version 1.0 for the very first time.
Originally planned to be included as part of the BES 4.1 release, BlackBerry Messenger (which wouldn’t be known formally as BBM until 5 years later) got a bit of a head start, as employees began to share the beta internally at Research In Motion (now BlackBerry). As a result, BlackBerry Messenger had a thriving community of users, before it was even released.
Only a handful of people were involved in the first version of BBM, which was originally called QuickMessenger until Jeremy Kettle coined the term BBM – BlackBerry Messenger – during an early meeting.
The name stuck (and was eventually added to the English Collins Dictionary in 2012).
BBM was the first form of text communication that was instant, cross-carrier, and mobile, in a time when people were still attached to their PCs,” says Klassen, who still invents things as a principal architect at BlackBerry. “With desktop IM’s, you could show up as ‘online’, but you might not be at your computer. BBM was the first to be always with you, and you were truly always ‘online’.
The speed with which messages were sent, delivered and read was matched only by the speed at which BBM grew. BlackBerry Messenger was one of the first over-the-air (OTA) apps available for BlackBerry Smartphones.
Low cost + low bandwidth + instant delivery was a recipe for success that continues to this day.
Indeed, BBM has grown incredibly: it’s also a social media platform, a medium for advertising, gaming and m-commerce, and the foundation of business-collaboration and highly-secure messaging services.
Here are some of the most impactful events in BBM history:
August 1, 2005 : Birth of BlackBerry Messenger
August 2009:GPS location integrated with BBM BBM, adds PIN Barcode scanning,Introduced Streamlined voice notes and Animated Display Picture first on mobile device
July 28, 2011: BBM 6 Launches with Connected Apps
November 2, 2011: BBM Music Beta Launches
September 13, 2012: BBM Enters the Collins English Dictionary
December 10, 2012: BBM Voice Launcheswith BBM7 Update
October 22, 2013: BBM Goes Cross Platform
November 26, 2013: BBM Channels Launches
April 1, 2014: BBM Stickers Launches
November 20, 2014: BBM Meetings Launches
January 7, 2015: BBM Supports Android Wearables
February, 2015: BBM Shop Hits 1 Billion Views
March 4, 2015: BBM Hits 100M Google Play Installs
June 26, 2015: Private Chat Introduced
July 3, 2015: BBM Gets Android Material Design Makeover
August 1, 2015: BBM Celebrates its 10th Birthday
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