Reminder: MMAjunkie.com Mobile app available for iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android

As a reminder, the MMAjunkie.com Mobile App is now available on iPad and Android devices, which join the apps currently available for iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones.

The downloads are free.

The app provides users with instant, real-time access to the latest MMAjunkie.com information, including top stories, rumors, event updates and wagering information. Unlike enhanced mobile websites, content within the MMAjunkie.com mobile application is refreshed automatically with no need to update manually.

MMAjunkie.com Mobile was developed in conjunction with Handmark, whose Mobile Publishing Platform (MPP) supports a wide variety of major newspapers, magazines and other leading online content destinations.

The MMAjunkie.com app, which includes all the news from the World MMA Awards' three-time "Best Media Outlet" winner (2008-2010), first debuted in March 2010 for iPhone and BlackBerry. The slick and easy-to-use app features quick load times, automatic refreshing, and the same navigation-friendly structure found on the regular MMAjunkie.com site. Coverage includes the UFC, Strikeforce, Bellator Fighting Championships, DREAM, World Victory Road/Sengonku and other top promotions.

Content comes from contributors such as John Morgan (2009 World MMA Awards "Journalist of the Year"), Steven Marrocco (SI.com columnist), Dann Stupp (MMAjunkie.com editor-in-chief and "Dayton Daily News" MMA beat writer), Derek Bolender (former FOXSports.com and CBSSports.com contributor), Kyle Nagel ("Dayton Daily News" reporter), Dr. Johnny Benjamin (MMAjunkie.com medical consultant and columnist), David Nelmark (MMAjunkie.com legal consultant and columnist) and others.

Additional app features are expected to be added in the coming months.

The MMAjunkie.com application is available to download now for free at www.mmajunkie.com/mobile.

For more information about the Handmark Mobile Publishing Platform, visit www.handmarkmobileapps.com.

mmajunkie.com

Posted on 1:03 AM / 0 comments / Read More

Can the BlackBerry Messenger Save RIMM?

Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) is in trouble again, as shown by its lowered 2011 earnings forecast.

BlackBerry shipment volumes are down, too, as is the average selling price. And RIMM has also had to delay new product launches until later this year while it develops touchscreen models and tries to shift to a new operating system.

The company continues to struggle to retain its portion of the ultra-competitive smartphone market. According to research firm Canalys, RIMM’s global share slipped to 14 percent in the fourth quarter, down from 20 percent a year earlier.

Worse yet, the industry forecasts that its hold will slip to 11 percent by 2015. Analysts even expect Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), with itsrecentNokia (NYSE: NOK) deal, to outpace RIMM.

Many want to write off the BlackBerry creator as a non-competitor altogether. And they have some reason to do so, considering how Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhones and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android-operated phones keep scoring big with consumers.

The latter could even hold up to half of the global smartphone market by 2015.

RIMM’s Secret Weapon: BBM

But RIMM does have one last hope of retaining a decent percentage of the smartphone market in BBM, or BlackBerry Messenger…

Many young people around the globe aged 15 through 24 are buying BlackBerry phones in great numbers for a single feature: BBM, the instant messaging application available only on RIMM devices.

Similar to SMS text messaging, it runs faster. And it’s free, as opposed to extra data packages.

Over 39 million people use it worldwide, though it hasn’t taken off yet in the United States. BBM is extremely popular, however, in

* The U.K.
* Netherlands
* Brazil
* Indonesia
* South Africa
* The Middle East

In the past year alone, usage has risen 500 percent, making it a real threat to phone companies’ text-messaging revenue in certain markets. In fact, consultancy firm Mobile Youth expects SMS volumes to drop by 20 percent in the next two years in countries like the U.K.

RIMM’s management team didn’t even realize the program’s potential at first, which doesn’t say much for them. Graham Brown, managing director at Mobile Youth, said BBM took off “before RIMM saw it on their radar.”

Could Blackberry Messenger Change RIMM’s Outlook?

The growth of BlackBerry Messenger could signal a significant step for RIMM. It’s the reason why business users no longer make up the majority of BlackBerry users.

What Research in Motion now needs is for youths’ enthusiasm for BBM to spread to their parents. If that happens, the company believes it can retain its market share.

To capitalize on that potential, RIMM now provides “gifting” capabilities in BBM. This allows users to send each other talk-time vouchers, and virtual items such as music tracks should soon follow.

The company is also opening up BBM to third-party developers. Doing so allows it to build other services on top of – or incorporate into – its messaging system.

This could open it up to ads and marketers next, leading to increased revenue. Rumors even suggest that RIMM might open up BBM to other mobile platforms, through iPhone or Android applications.

But BBM’s “social platform” is still in beta testing mode. And management remains cautious.

This case of largely unnecessary nerves says something about how the company runs. RIMM finally has a worthwhile weapon against Apple and others… yet it hesitates to fully unleash it.

The company should be pushing BBM every chance it gets, particularly in the United States.

Good investing,

Tony D’Altorio

www.investmentu.com

Posted on 1:01 AM / 0 comments / Read More

Ballmer Bings RIM: Microsoft search to be BlackBerry default

Bing on BlackBerry: RIM's Mike Lazaridis and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer shake on it

The ink may be barely dry on the Microsoft-Nokia Windows Phone 7 (WP7) pact but Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer has already been out wooing fresh mobile partners. On Tuesday, Ballmer took to the stage at RIM's BlackBerry World user conference to announce a partnership with the BlackBerry maker over Microsoft's Bing search engine and maps.

The Bing search engine will be the default search provider in the browser for all new BlackBerry smartphones, a RIM spokeswoman confirmed. Bing search will also be the default on the company's BlackBerry Playbook tablet and Bing maps will power the tablet's native map app. RIM has not yet made clear whether it will receive payment from Microsoft for pushing Bing to BlackBerry users.

The PlayBook launched last month in the US but has not yet made it into shops on this side of the Atlantic.

Both companies have blogged about the partnership, with Microsoft's Matt Dahlin, director of Bing, describing the love-in as an "alliance", while a post on the official BlackBerry Blog said the partnership will see Bing "deeply integrated into the BlackBerry experience".

The pair added that Bing will also get "regular, featured placement and promotion" in the BlackBerry App World carousel.

Dahlin's post flagged up the importance to Microsoft of integrating its search software "on mobile devices of all sorts" - not just phones running its own WP7 OS.

"This goes way beyond a search box and links that rank URLs representing a set of web documents," he noted in the blog post. "Devices are becoming sensors that can provide real-time access to information to help people quickly complete tasks on the go. We're going to see a convergence of search, commerce, social and location-centric services."

Tweeting about the agreement, Forrester analyst Ian Fogg said the Microsoft-RIM tie-up on BlackBerry search suggests Nokia CEO Stephen Elop "may have been completely right with his three ecosystems outlook".

In February, Elop described the mobile landscape as "now a three-horse race" after Nokia announced its own tie-in with Microsoft. The other two horses in Elop's metaphor are Apple's iOS and Google's Android platform.

Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi told silicon.com that the agreement with RIM is about Microsoft capitalising on every opportunity at its disposal. "This is not about their mobile strategy. This is about Microsoft's search business," Milanesi said.

She said the deal should not be seen as negative for the WP7-Nokia partnership. "If anything, this is good for Nokia as it means that BlackBerry devices will use Bing, which uses Microsoft's maps so potentially driving more revenue for them," she added.

Bing was the fastest growing search engine in the UK in March, according to data released last month by market research company Experian Hitwise. While Google remained the dominant search player, accounting for more than 90 per cent of the UK market, between February and March 2011 Google search sites lost 0.66 per cent market share of searches, while Microsoft sites increased their market share by 0.28 per cent.

Releasing its worldwide smartphone market share data for the second quarter of this year, analyst house Canalys said Android led the market for the second quarter running, shipping 35.7 million units and increasing its share to 35 per cent.

www.silicon.com

Posted on 12:52 AM / 0 comments / Read More

Bing on BlackBerry is a Big Win for Microsoft

When Steve Ballmer strode up onto the stage at BlackBerry World 2011 to announce the new integration partnership between Microsoft and RIM, the full impact of the statement didn't immediately register. Bringing Bing to BlackBerry and deeply interweaving its mapping and search abilities is a great idea – RIM's own implementations aren't that amazing, and mobile search and maps are hugely important pieces of the smartphone puzzle in 2011. It makes perfect sense, then, for RIM to team up with Microsoft in order to provide its users with better experiences on their BlackBerry devices. It also makes perfect sense for Microsoft, which now poses a serious challenge to Google in the squared circle that is mobile.

After recently buddying up with Nokia, Microsoft now has two allies with massive user bases that can push Bing on mobile devices. Despite struggling for market share against the iPhone and a torrent of Android devices, RIM and Nokia still boast many millions of users. Add in the projections that Windows Phone will become a force to be reckoned with in the coming years, and Microsoft seems to have done an excellent job of muscling in on Google's mobile turf.

Why is this such a big deal? Because mobile search and mapping are blowing up, and not just in terms of popularity. A recent Google survey showed that 77% of mobile users search and 95% hunt for local information. On top of that, 79% percent use their smartphone as a shopping companion, comparing prices and checking reviews. 82% of mobile users notice ads, and as many as 1 in 5 make a purchase as a result.

Those percentages translate into a pile of cash for companies serving search results and ads, and Microsoft will be more than happy to re-route as many dollars as it can from Google. It'll take time for the impact to be noticeable, of course. RIM still needs to push updates to its users in order to integrate Bing at the OS level, but it would be surprising if the BlackBerry mobile portal doesn't update soon to swap that Google search box out for Bing. Once that happens, there will certainly be some Burns-esque hand rubbing going on in Redmond as the revenue starts rolling in.

www.extremetech.com

Posted on 12:48 AM / 0 comments / Read More

BlackBerry Playbook gets Official Facebook App

iPad owners must be thinking "what the chiz" at the release of an official Facebook app for the BlackBerry Playbook. Until now, no other tablet had the opportunity to be blessed with a Facebook app thanks in part to Mark Zuckerburg's "iPad is not a mobile device" declaration.

Maybe it's the smaller 7" size of the Playbook that made the Facebook CEO green light an app for the PlayBook (Methinks it's all the Adobe Air and Flash technology that powers the app) Nonetheless, the app is here and ready keep BB users plugged in while on the go.

The PlayBook Facebook app has the similar features of other mobile apps - Access to your news feed, status updates, Facebook chats, and user profiles/pages. You can upload images from your PlayBook picture library, and view photos and videos in full 1080p HD by connecting the BlackBerry PlayBook to an HD TV.

Until mobile app developers fully jump on RIM's team and churn out apps like their iOS and Android counterparts, visit BlackBerry App World to download the free PlayBook Facebook app and keep those statuses updated.

www.appscout.com

Posted on 10:32 AM / 0 comments / Read More

Bold move - meet the BlackBerry iPhone

JUST in case they cannot beat them, BlackBerry appeared to join Apple yesterday in creating a smartphone with a glass body, stainless steel frame and touch-sensitive screen.

The email-friendly smartphone maker revealed the familiar features in a new flagship phone that will be the thinnest BlackBerry to date, giving it a profile that closely resembles the Apple iPhone 4 and intensifying competition in the phone market.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900, due in Australia this year, will add one feature yet to debut in an Apple gadget, however.

Near Field Communication in the new BlackBerry could let the phone double as a credit card, as well as reading information from public posters.

Despite the phone's new design, touchscreen and power, RIM spokesman Carlo Chiarello said the company remained focussed on keeping its email-chasing, keyboard-using audience loyal.

"This is absolutely the best keyboard we have brought into a product bar none,'' he said.

"This is the most uncompromising BlackBerry yet."

Its similarities with Apple's iPhone could help the Canadian phone maker as the battle for smartphone dominance becomes more cutthroat.

Google pulled to the front of the smartphone race at the end of last year with 32.9 per cent of the market, followed by Nokia (30.6%) and Apple (16.2%).

RIM BlackBerry fell to fourth spot worldwide with 14.6 per cent, down from a 20 per cent share and second place in 2009.

In addition to the company's new smartphone unveiled at BlackBerry World in Orlando, RIM focussed on its 7-inch tablet, the PlayBook, due to be released in Australia shortly.

The company yesterday launched a video-calling application for the PlayBook, as well as the first official Facebook application developed for a tablet computer, beating Apple and Google to the punch.

www.news.com.au

Posted on 10:31 AM / 0 comments / Read More