BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) instant messaging service application that was popular in the 2000s finally gave up and announced it would stop operating on May 31, 2019.
BBM services had returned to life under the Emtek Group company in 2016 and continued to face resistance from various similar services such as WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, and LINE.
Yesterday, a blog post that was published and accompanied by icon BBM stickers appeared viral on a number of social networking media. The post contained a message that read ‘Time to say goodbye. BBM will stop operating on May 31, 2019. Thank you for being part of the BBM trip’.
According to BBM, one major reason for closing BBM services is the difficulty of getting new customers.
Citing BBM blog post, “The technology industry, however, is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on.”
BBM has created features such as sending messages with stickers, video calls, and also can pay various bills through the application.
However, BBM still cannot compete and get worse by WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, LiINE, WeChat, and Telegram.
But one thing that cannot be taken away from BBM is that… they’re one of the pioneers of exciting instant messaging features. Features like stickers, message retract, timed messages and more will forever be part of the instant messaging.
The enterprise version will however still be available for download for free on Android and iOS but users will be required to pay $2.50 subscription fee every six months. One thing to note is that BBM enterprise version does offer end-to-end message encryption like WhatsApp; so, it’s definitely worth trying if you are a big fan.
Last year, saw the end of Yahoo Messenger and a few weeks ago, Google shuts down its Google+ service. These were once the biggest social apps once upon a time just as BBM was.
When was the last time you used BBM? Do you still have BBM installed on your phone? What was your favourite BBM feature?
