By now, you may have come across SAM and MO BlackBerry. SAM and MO were created by Rogers for social networking initiatives, particularly focused on training sales staff to sell BlackBerry devices. They use a program called BlackBerry New School, which is a Facebook portal with a variety of ways to educate and engage staff including:
Twitter tips and tricks.
Forums (with point incentives that may be tied to rewards).
Quizzes (earn points for completing).
Videos (how tos).
Facebook features (wall posts, comments, etc.)
The carrier is better than the manufacturer when it comes to educating users, primarily because of the incredible exposure they have, and the marketing dollars they can invest. I think there are a few things that RIM can learn from Rogers and vice versa.
What RIM Can Learn From Rogers: Rewards to Drive Participation
I haven’t been to the MyBlackBerry Community in some time, because it didn’t have any major features that encouraged me to come back. Sure, it’s a great forum where users can go to discuss BlackBerry, but there are a ton of places to do that already. The MyBlackBerry Community could really do with implementing the rewards feature that Rogers uses with BlackBerry New School. By offering points for contributions, MyBlackBerry would see a surge in traffic and participation. They could even give away prizes based on points like Rogers does.
What Rogers Can Learn From RIM: Keeping the Message Cool
While Rogers really hit the nail on the head when it comes to making SAM and MO look like the new BlackBerry demographic (young and hip versus old businessman), the message they’re sending is a little corny. For example, MO BlackBerry writes “Sometime I forget how convenient it is being able to have multiple e-mail accounts synched to my BlackBerry.” Compare that to the official RIM Twitter account, which sends out Tweets about cool things they’re doing at CES and projects they have going with Dipdive’s Will.i.am.
Overall, I’d like to see some cross-pollinating of ideas between Rogers and RIM and see them come together on these social initiatives. It seems as though they’re really disconnected because I’ve never seen one talk about the other. In the end, everyone wins.
Mongolia is only about 3 million and Ulaanbaatar is around 1 million, so isn’t going to have a big impact on RIM’s sales, but nonetheless RIM and Alcatel-Lucent have launched the BlackBerry solution in Mongolia. The Bold 9000, Curve 8320 and BlackBerry 8700 are all launching in Mongolia, as well as BES and BIS. We’re not sure on price, but it’s going to be a small subset of the population buying BlackBerry. With China being Mongolia’s biggest trading partner, and BlackBerry set to launch in China, this could be of big help to businessmen in the region.
TELUS have recently launched the BlackBerry Curve 8530 for $49.99 on a 3 year plan. You can also get it on 2 and 1 year plans for $249.99 and $349.99 respectively. The 8530 is a really solid phone with a trackpad and OS 5, and I’m expecting a lot of TELUS users to pick this one up. The downside here is that while many carriers are offering the 8530 for free, TELUS still want to offload their old 8330 stock and are offering that device for $0.
Wallpaper Shifter is a free app that lets you change your wallpaper automatically, allowing you to define a folder to take the wallpapers from, and an interval at which they rotate. The app is a discovery tool for other MMMOOO products, which I find are generally helpful and reasonably priced.
There is a BBM spam message going around that suggests 35 cents will be donated to help Haiti when you forward the message to others. The message reads:
“Because of what has transpired in Haiti recently, Blackberry (sic) has decided to help out and give 35 cents for the cause when you pass this message along to your friends on BBM"
While most readers are familiar with BBM, and have probably disregarded the message, there are still some new users who are genuinely confused. Since BBM messages are totally free, passing the message on won’t incur a fee, it’s just misleading.
While passing a BBM message won’t result in a donation, RIM is donating money as well as BlackBerrys to help in the relief effort.
It’s most likely the BBM message is getting broadcasted from user to user, and not the result of someone hacking the system. What’s probably most interesting about this, is that it shows just how viral BBM can be. It seems that BBM has the ability to spread a message between a very large group of peers, just like a series of ReTweets in Twitter.
If you would like to donate, consider a major charitable organization with experience in the field. Here is a list of organizations you can SMS money to:
Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to International Rescue Committee
Text HAITI to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada
Text YELE to 501501 to donation $5 to Yele
Text RELIEF to 30644 to get automatically connected to Catholic Relief Services and donate money with your credit card
Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $5 to The United Way
Text CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International
The President Theme is a free theme available in App World, compatible with all BlackBerry devices. On the 81XX, 83XX, 87XX and 88XX, this theme lacks a hidden dock, but you still get the basics.
This theme is very decent considering it’s free. It comes with the standard BlackBerry icons, and allows you to upload a custom wallpaper picture that gets framed within the theme. I think BlackBerry themes in general are really coming into themselves with more customization. If there was a paid version of this theme, it should include the ability to add stickers and writing to your picture, which is really popular in Asia.
Every day a new BlackBerry user is born and they may be coming from the feature phone world and have never before downloaded an app. If you’re a regular reader of BlackBerry Cool, you’re very familiar with the app downloading process, so feel free to skip the post or offer more helpful tips.
There are several ways to install software on your BlackBerry.
Option 1: Find a good site for software. Two good sources for apps are:
Then click on a link and download wirelessly or "Over the Air" also called "OTA". You can also have the link emailed to you after entering your address into a web form on the software vendor's or web store's site. Another way is to type a web address directly into your BlackBerry web browser.
TIP: You may need to use the "Go To…" menu command in your Browser to type a web address.
Some sites ask you to enter your "Mobile Phone Number" – this is your BlackBerry phone number – in order to send you an SMS Text Message with the download link.
Option 2: Download a file to your computer then connect your BlackBerry to your computer and install it via USB cable connection or sometimes Bluetooth connection.
Option 3: (Only if your BlackBerry is connected to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server.) Your BlackBerry Server Administrator can "push" new software directly to your BlackBerry device. Using this option is both wireless and automatic from the user's perspective.
Wirelessly Installing Software Directly from Your BlackBerry Over-the-Air ("OTA")
The beauty of the wireless "Over-the-Air" (OTA) software installation is that you do not need a computer or CD, or even a USB cable to install new software.
To Install Software Wirelessly Over-the-Air ("OTA"):
To install software from your BlackBerry, as described above, you need to either click a link you received in your email or SMS text message or start the Web Browser and "Go To…" a web address where the software download files are located. In this example, we will use www.mobile.blackberry.com.
Navigate around the web site and click on a link for the software title you want to install.
Usually, a license agreement screen pops up. You must click "Accept" to continue with the download. The next screen to appear is the standard "Download" screen. This screen shows the name, version, the "Vendor" (software company), and size of the program. Below all this information you see a "Download" button to click on.
The progress of the download will be displayed in the center of the screen. NOTE: You may see a warning message that says something like: "WARNING: Application is not digitally signed. Do you want to continue? Yes or No"
You must click "Yes" to continue, but make sure this is software from a vendor that you recognize or have confidence that it is not malicious. Once the application is completely downloaded, a dialogue box pops up notifying you the download was successful. You may be given an option to "Run" the program.
Finally, if you clicked on "Run" you would start the newly installed software; clicking "OK" brings you back to the original web page where you downloaded the file. To exit to your Home Screen, press the ESCAPE key a few times. You will then see the new icon either on your Home Screen of icons, in the Applications sub-folder, or after you press the MENU key to see all your icons. Downloading and Installing Games and other Icons on your BlackBerry.
The BlackBerry can truly be a Multimedia Entertainment device. Sometimes, you might want to play a new game on your BlackBerry. While your BlackBerry may have come with a few games, there are many places on the Web where you can find others.
We have a ton of users asking for SocialScope invites on BlackBerry Cool and I can only imagine it’s a fraction of what the team at SocialScope must receive. Today, the team behind SocialScope put up a post (at least I assume it’s them and not someone who started a Tumblr account in their name) telling users that they should just be patient. The SocialScope team will be expanding the beta program to include more users, and they’re sorry for offending anyone for not responding to inquiries. My guess is that SocialScope will be launching as a paid app, and they don’t want to include too many people and cannibalize sales.
We've been getting a lot of questions about the SocialScope beta process and want to address them. First, no one should feel left out because they haven't received an invite or are running a different version then someone else. As the beta progresses every one will be upgraded and more users will be added.
Second, we're always seeding new versions of the app to small groups of users to test, tune and tweak SocialScope. Keeping the test groups small allows us to work closely with these users; making changes that would otherwise drive you crazy and lead to overwhelming number of support emails for us. This is an iterative process that can take many versions until its ready for a wider group of users.
Finally, we've tried to be as inclusive as possible leading to a very very large private beta. That means we can't respond to every email or @reply (we wish we could, but we're a small team), but your feedback is really valuable to us and we read every email we get.
"How do you select users to seed versions to?" Its largely random, but sometimes based on device type and carrier if we're trying to track down a specific issue.
"How long will it take for me to get version x?" We can't give you a date, but as soon as its ready you'll get an upgrade notice within the app.
"I haven't even gotten an invite yet…" We're constantly expanding the beta when a spot opens up or the app is released publicly we'll let you know.
The good people at Epik Phone Cases are giving away 25 BlackBerry cases to 25 lucky BlackBerry Cool readers. We’ll be selecting people randomly from the comments, but if you leave your Twitter or Blog address in the URL field, your chances of winning will be GREATLY improved. If you want to exponentially improve your chances of winning, tell us a story about dropping your device, or anything about why you’d like an Epik case.
Remember, you need to leave a valid email address to win, and once we announce the winners, be sure to check your Spam folder as contest emails can often end up there.
If you can’t wait to see if you won, you can always get 10% off an Epik case now by using the coupon code “BBCOOL” at Epikphonecases.com.
UPDATE: I should mention that these cases are only available for the BlackBerry 9700, 9550, 9520, 8900, 8520/8530, 8300/8310/8320/8330.
UPDATE: Reports are coming in specifically from Ontario, Canada. Just to be clear.
We’re getting reports that the Rogers 3G network has been shotty all day and in many cases going down completely. If you’re experiencing problems, turn off your 3G connection and you should be good. We’ve heard that there was a planned BlackBerry service outage yesterday and I doubt the two are related but you never know.
Elecite have a new theme called Halcyon that comes with a bottom dock that contains 9 locked and ordered application icons: contacts, messages, calendar, tasks, memo, profiles, browser, facebook and Twitter (UberTwitter). Each icon is oversized and the calendar and messsages apps have a hidden Today preview area. Halcyon also features an 8-9 customizable icon menu and a weather slot.
This theme would be great if the locked icon set are apps that you use a lot. Halcyon would therefore make for faster access to the apps you love.
Since we last wrote about Kryos at Dev Con, they have been busy on their Velocity platform for BlackBerry, making it faster and more feature-rich.
Kryos help companies build BlackBerry applications using their platform called Velocity. In version 1.3 of Velocity, Kryos have improved the speed of their platform, as well as they have included features for better application design including tabbed navigation.
RIM are rolling out two new apps for the enterprise market including IBM’s Lotus Quickr and Connections. These apps are intended to foster greater collaboration in an organization and do so by connecting users in a variety of ways.
Lotus Quickr brings the organization together by making libraries, folders and content easier to download. Lotus Connections allows users to build a community, share bookmarks and blog from their device. Combined, the apps should help foster a great sense of community in an organization.
Lotus Connections and IBM Lotus Quickr provides:
An intuitive means of reaching out to discover expertise within an organization and to securely collaborate and stay connected with the team in real time even while away from the desk.
A compelling user experience with the Lotus applications being deeply integrated with core BlackBerry functions.
Ability to add colleagues to the collaboration applications with one click and automatic configuration.
The key advantages for the IT organization managing the end-user experience on the BlackBerry are:
A simple-to-manage, unified control point.
Administrator-friendly manageability and security.
Control and awareness on how the company’s data flows.
Ability to optimize the data that social networking services send to BlackBerry.
In India, as well as many countries, officers at the Prime Minister’s Office and other ministries like Defence, Home and External Affairs have linked their official email addresses to their BlackBerry devices. When news of this spread, a senior officer from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), wishing anonymity, called it a big security goof-up. “There is a secure Internet network for ministers and officials working in sensitive departments. But it’s difficult to put up similar security parameters in BlackBerry and other such devices like VoIP,” he said.
Meanwhile, sources also revealed intelligence agencies have asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Department of Telecom (DoT) to review the situation and prescribe stricter security measures.
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