[anon(3732391)]

Who knows where "Telegram" will be in a year or two?

One app is not going to put BlackBerry "BACK" on the map or in the number One position.
Staying on course to rebuild the company with the best OS and the Quality Devices that BlackBerry has always been known for...will!

New companies are born everyday and people always want what's new!
Let BlackBerry say in the shadows for a while longer.

When they re emerge, it'll be like a new company.
And, when BlackBerry is ready.... they'll come back with such force that those toy companies will pale by comparison.

[NinjaB]

From reading some of the comments in this thread, one would think that John Chen is not so smart at all. Makes me wonder if the honeymoon is finally over.

i wouldn't say that, at least not personally... i think he is the right man for the job, i'm just confused by the marketing, or lack therof on some potentially huge competitive advantages... maybe i see it a little more cuz marketing is my major, but it just seems obvious... i literally get a little jealous sometimes when i see Apple commercials- like, would it be so hard for BB to do that?

Who knows where "Telegram" will be in a year or two?

One app is not going to put BlackBerry "BACK" on the map or in the number One position.
Staying on course to rebuild the company with the best OS and the Quality Devices that BlackBerry has always been known for...will!

New companies are born everyday and people always want what's new!
Let BlackBerry say in the shadows for a while longer.

When they re emerge, it'll be like a new company.
And, when BlackBerry is ready.... they'll come back with such force that those toy companies will pale by comparison.

I agree with the first half... the last sentence, just sounds like wishful thinking to me... instead of relying on some possible but far-from-guaranteed "force" that they will emerge with, why not take advantage of right-now opportunities you have full capability to jump on?

not saying make it the end-all be-all, but doing that along with what you mentioned in the first part, is a winning strategy... not all your eggs in one basket, we see where that got us with BB10 (alive but not prosperous)... which relates back to your original point as well...

[Troy Tiscareno]

One of the problems is that BB management is very distracted by having a lot of issues at once, and having to deal with a large amount of upper management turnover. This I'm sure contributes to BB not being able to respond nimbly when an opportunity presents itself. But that's VERY BAD for BB. If, say, BBM had been spun off as its own company, its management wouldn't have to be worried about handsets or carriers or car entertainment systems or any of that, and they could have jumped on this opportunity because promoting and improving BBM would be ALL they had to do.

Chen better be making some serious improvements to BB's culture, because it doesn't take very many misses like this to destroy a brand, and BB already has way too many strikes against it from previous misses. It can't afford many more.

[tchocky77]

Who knows where "Telegram" will be in a year or two?

A reasonable question. Then we could reasonably ask the same question about Blackberry, my man.

[freedomx20a]

whats a Telegram?

[Nharzhool]

Hmm...I'm confused by the complaints about the invitation sequence...

It is much easier to setup a BBM account and then just put your PIN into your facebook details than get a mobile number (yes, this is a ridiculous comparison because most people need or already have a mobile number).

When I hit "Invites" in BBM and the "Sugggested" tab, all my friends using BBM with their PIN in facebook show up (or who are registered with BBM with the same email address as the facebook one) in there...all I need to do is tap the invitation button and it sends them a BBM Contact request. If I scroll further down, I can mail people I have on facebook that don't have their PIN listed or aren't using the same email address, it sends them the email with all the details.

I get that it isn't as easy as just opening whatsapp and already having all your contacts already in there...but I find that I talk to the people I have on BBM more often than on whatsapp, because I went out of my way to invite/accept them so they're actually worth more to me than just a name I happen to have in my phonebook.

Most of the time I don't want those people to be able to message me for little effort and almost for free but because of Whatsapp, they can do this without a hassle...except it is a massive hassle for me.

I far prefer whitelisting people to blacklisting them...

I get that a lot of people just want convenience and this is obviously why Whatsapp has done well. I guess I just wish that most people weren't so...blas� about privacy and/or security.

[freespirit2]

Besides the marketing issue, I think it's the extremely cumbersome invitation process that makes so many iOS/Android users dislike BBM.
I sent BBM invitations to all my WA contacts over the last days to convert them to BBM after the FB/WA acquisition, and received alsmost no positive feedback...actually the few that agreed to connect with me were the ones that I guided through the invitation/acceptance process personally, while sitting with them. All others were just appalled and confused by receiving cryptic emails and having to walk throug a multitude of stages and steps until a connection was established.

I think if BB doesn't improve that VERY SOON (i.e. within the next 3 weeks, not more than that), then the next great opportunity to create significant impact on the messenger market will be gone - AGAIN! And BBM will not succeed.

This would be less frustrating, if it was not stated over and over and over and over and over again, since BBMX was released. SOmetimes I think that people at BB just focus on the wrong things. Who cares about channels, it's the INVITATION PROCESS and RELIABILITY AND STABILITY of the service that needs to be fixed and improved, with the very highest priority!

[freespirit2]

No argument with the need to improve the ease in which people can join and sign up. I signed my wife up, but had to walk her through the steps on her android. Then she asked why she needs it.

[xBURK]

At least Mr Chen and BlackBerry have had great press headlines in the last few months. Now the positive story's out way the negative ones. That's something I did not expect to happen so fast when he came on board. I do agree that BlackBerry is missing a huge marketing opportunity with NSA etc... That being said, I do have confidence that Mr. Chen knows exactly how to play this out though.

If BlackBerry does decide to advertise security.....My idea would be to have a contest for anyone who can hack into them. That would create a ton of buzz and get the point across at the same time.

Posted via CB10

[velkod]

BlackBerry has always been the odd guy out. Stood out from the crowd sooo why blend in n sell BBM n do what everyone else is doing? They have a plan n strategy. Calm down. Jeez. Why everyone panicking? forget Facebook n what's app. I don't use either.

[milo53]

They probably tried to call JC in California but his iPhone couldn't get signal.

I just spit out my dinner, that's funny sh*t.

[milo53]

One of the problems is that BB management is very distracted by having a lot of issues at once, and having to deal with a large amount of upper management turnover. This I'm sure contributes to BB not being able to respond nimbly when an opportunity presents itself. But that's VERY BAD for BB. If, say, BBM had been spun off as its own company, its management wouldn't have to be worried about handsets or carriers or car entertainment systems or any of that, and they could have jumped on this opportunity because promoting and improving BBM would be ALL they had to do.

Chen better be making some serious improvements to BB's culture, because it doesn't take very many misses like this to destroy a brand, and BB already has way too many strikes against it from previous misses. It can't afford many more.

Very true, with huge layoffs, many execs comming and going, and important key engineers scurrying away from Waterloo like crazy, it must be nuts in that place. This will be a huge issue, tech industry changes, progresses, like lightning. Chen and most of his cronies are from other industries, they need months before speaking what they know. We can see by press releases, he is feeling his way around a bit.

[Qurve]

What "marketing department"?
Even since Chen arrived I still think this company is a total stranger to 'marketing' and then to such a silly extent it almost looks like they are doing it on purpose....

[sixpacker]

So your friends cannot think, read or research for themselves? Talk about being sheep. Sheesh...

Many saw the big news of BBRY being put up for sale, and haven't seen a single ad or promotion since. What do you expect the average punter to think?

Posted via the Android CrackBerry App!

[menshawy]

I don't know much about marketing and management, I'll talk from the end user prospective. BBM should work specially on crucial time like this on decreasing the gap between it and the dominant messaging apps in terms of why-people-are-preferring-this-app-to-BBM. WhatsApp for example offers ease of use and ease of adding contacts. A minimal "registration" form at the first launch of BBM is needed. The UI for a lot of us is good but most of the smartphone user base is composed of teens and youth, those people want to stare at something that cheers them up! Solid white or black background and static graphics won't appeal those people much! Another thing is, there's still a decent amount of people running older phones or weak ones and though they tried BBM on their phones and even those with Gingerbread -thanks BlackBerry- they had to remove it again because it slowed down their phones to death and returned to WhatsApp and Viber! I don't know much about software either but I think some parts of the code could be trimmed to keep the application with enough code to run minimally.

To sum this up, I'm saying BlackBerry should listen to a lot of users of other platforms.. study their usage behavior of their smartphones and applications. Style and trends has impact too. And oh, BBM Video should go cross platform ASAP!!

Posted via CB10

[sixpacker]

Chen better be making some serious improvements to BB's culture, because it doesn't take very many misses like this to destroy a brand, and BB already has way too many strikes against it from previous misses. It can't afford many more.

From what I've seen and heard from my contacts Chen has a dictatorial and aggressive management style. This just won't work in a high tech environment. Success in this sector has to be innovation /engineering led (as with apple/Samsung).

Posted via the Android CrackBerry App!

[younessBHm]

Yes that's a little bit sad, I was surprised just woke up this morning, and found 3 invite sms from some iPhone folks to download this app...Its should be BBM !

Posted via CB10

[MrGlenn]

I was let down by the invitation sequence as well. I knew it should either check PIN or BBID-email in my address book (or the address book of others). But when I installed BBM for my mom, that did not work at all. I am sure we had the proper email addresses added (through Gmail, and FB sync'd), but I still had to manually share PINs.
Nothing showed up under suggested contacts.

...I'm confused by the complaints about the invitation sequence...

In fact, the only 3 suggested contacts I see on my Q10 are legacy PINs, from people that do not even have their BlackBerry anymore.
_____

Now for some good news: BBM on Android works for my mom and me 100% of the time. Tested all parts. And it has little to no extra battery drain compared to other IM apps.(She even turned off the background icon, but still receives BBMs instantly (gives a prompt delays may occur when RAM is low).


BlackBerry 10 signed.

[jic999]

Best Post, BBM needs to be promoted Big time !

Posted via CB10

[jic999]

Inviting got a whole lot easier with the invite selection, but BBM should have a Password protect toggle On or Off to sync all your social contacts.
Egg. Sync On will sync every social contact like what's App , maybe even have the option to sync certain social contacts like FB only etc.

Sync Off BBM will function as is !

Both will use the PIN

Posted via CB10

[Toone007]

Change your profile pictures in this pic on Facebook, Twitter,....
#deletewhatsapp #BBM

[SunshineStateFlyer]

My country's no 1 newspaper has suggested bbm as an alternative. However I do not know how the marketing departement at BlackBerry can miss such an opportunity.

Posted via CB10

[nemo7]

OmG Telegram App is growing very fast. I have 10 Contacts over night.

Windows Blueberry

[pzztgotbagz]

BlackBerry has always been just a little too late.

Posted via CB10

[Canuck671]

Everyone is an armchair CEO. Hindsight is 20/20. BlackBerry has a plan in place. We may not know what it is. I'm not worried because my phone will work regardless. I've shown that bbm has excellent voice chat and video, has caused some interesting conversations. I'm always promoting my Z10. Just wish I had a 30.

Posted via CB10