It’s vital to keep in mind that 20 years in the past, textual content messages price 10 cents. Every. Again once we measured our cellular phone plans in minutes, and when even 3G connections felt quick, textual content messages have been an enormous enterprise for wi-fi carriers and a huge expense for anybody whose children realized to T9-type just a bit too rapidly. Then BlackBerry, nearing the height of its powers, did one thing outstanding: it reduce the carriers out fully. Earlier than WhatsApp and Telegram, earlier than iMessage and RCS, there was BlackBerry Messenger. And whereas we don’t use BBM anymore, we owe it a debt of gratitude. And some dimes.
In this episode of Version History, our new present about a very powerful merchandise in tech historical past, we dig into how BBM occurred, and why it in the end misplaced the messaging wars. David Pierce, Nilay Patel, and Joanna Stern reminisce about their BBM experiences — together with Joanna explaining why she cherished and used BBM way longer than it was appropriate to like and use BBM — earlier than going by means of the app’s full historical past and legacy.
BBM, you’ll discover out on this episode, was proper about virtually every little thing. BlackBerry understood the attraction of the “every little thing app” idea lengthy earlier than it was mainstream, and added practically every feature it might consider to the app. Inside BBM, you would share music, ship cash, publish to social networks, and way more.
What in the end killed the product was, effectively, numerous issues, however notably lock-in. When folks stopped shopping for BlackBerry units they stopped utilizing BBM. However there was a forceful inner push to make BBM a world platform, which led to massive management modifications inside the corporate and one of many messaging trade’s most fascinating what-ifs.
That is the second episode of Model Historical past. (The primary epispde was about hoverboards!). If you wish to discover the present there are three good locations to go:
Because of everybody who has already watched or listened to the present, and has despatched suggestions! We’re exhausting at work on the subsequent batch of episodes, and need to hear every little thing you assume we must be doing or not doing or doing in a different way. Within the meantime, although, if you wish to dive into BBM as deep as we did, listed here are some hyperlinks to get you began: