Seven months ago: BBM Music is here for BlackBerry

by Volker Weber

Once in a while I like to go back a few months and see what became of those excited announcements:

The BBM Music app is finally here, and will be available for downloading within the next 24 hours in Canada, the United States and Australia (more regions will be launching shortly, so stay tuned).

BBM is BlackBerry Messenger. Why tie BBM to music? Because RIM is pushing very hard to grow their walled garden. Where BBM reaches critical mass, it drives others to the BlackBerry platform. How does BBM music work?

First, let’s clarify one misconception: with a BBM Music Premium subscription, you can access far more than 50 songs. To start your BBM Music profile, you can choose up to 50 songs from the millions in our catalog. But, that’s just the beginning! Add more music to your library by adding friends and get access to your BBM friends’ music profile songs.

For $5 a month you get access to 50 tracks. That's right, 50. And to the tracks that your BBM contacts have chosen. How could RIM possibly have foreseen that all the other music services are giving their users access to all of their tracks. With three months free trials.

BBM is a much beloved service. And it's slowly being replaced by cross-platform messengers like WhatsApp. With BBM you have to give up your friends when they buy an iPhone or an Android. With BBM Music your music collections shrinks until you have 50 tracks and no friends.

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