While BlackBerry is refocusing much of its attention on the enterprise space, the company’s new CEO, John Chen, also reiterated that it was not turning its back on the consumer market. As if to reconfirm this, the latest feature to come to BBM is decidedly one for this market and especially the teen market. BlackBerry yesterday announced that it is bringing BBM stickers to chats: “Unlike emoticons, stickers are bolder, more beautiful images that you can add right in to your chat.”
Stickers will be available in sticker packs that will contain between 20 and 25 stickers. Centered around a particular theme or character, they will be available from a new BBM Shop directly within BBM. Packs will include themes and characters such as CosCat, Gilbert’s Tales, Bubble Bot as well as characters from TV and movies. Pricing for the sticker packs was not announced.
BlackBerry is kicking things off with an “external beta” for both BBM stickers and the BBM Shop. A public rollout will follow at an unspecified date.
BlackBerry released BBM 2.0 for Android and iPhone last week. It added the promised BBM Voice and BBM Channels features to both version. It followed that update with the release this week of BBM for Android Gingerbread.
Source : Inside BlackBerry Blog