RIM announces BBM Social Platform applications

The next edition of BlackBerry Messenger, called the BBM Social Platform, will integrate your current BBM experience with application and data-sharing.

This means that your interaction with your BBM contacts will go beyond sending/receiving messages, seeing profile photos, and reading status updates. The new platform will integrate information from applications, allowing you to interact like never before.

One of the many possibilities is that we could check out what are friends are listening to, preview it for ourselves, and even buy the song from within the application.

Here are some examples of integration efforts in the works:

• Kobo will be using it to create a shared shopping and reading experience — with users creating book clubs to read together, share passage[s] and chat as they go.
• Telmap, the leading European provider of mapping, navigation and local search applications will be using it to physically connect friends with each other, sharing locations, their whereabouts and facilitating meetups.
• ScoreMobile will be using it to allow friends to chat about live sporting events.
• Kik will be using it to reinvent how people share, discover and experience new music.
• Magmic will be using it to create a completely social poker experience, inviting friends to join your table, enhancing in-game chat and creating groups for casual play.

Tell us what you'd like to see in the new BBM.

source: BlackBerry Developer's Blog