New Blackberry Messenger V5.0 Features

Get in the know with these new BlackBerry® Messenger v5.0 features:

Add friends by scanning your unique barcode or sharing PINs
Share pictures, videos, voice notes and more with multiple contacts at once
Create groups of friends, family or colleagues and instantly share calendars, lists, conversations and updates
See what your friends are listening to by viewing their song titles
Send your location to friends (requires a smartphone with GPS capability)

With BlackBerry Messenger v5.0, your friends' status messages and availability show up instantly, so you can tell who's free to chat and who's working (or pretending to). You can even set your BlackBerry Messenger status to show what music you're listening to.

BlackBerry Messenger v5.0 makes it easy to set up different contact groups for friends and family members so you chat together or to categorize and easily access your contacts. There's no limit to the number of groups you can make, and you can have up to 30 members in each group.

For a browse through the new features, let's take a look at Claire and how she uses BlackBerry Messenger to keep in touch with family, friends, and coworkers.

courtessy of blackberry.com

If Claire needs some advice picking out an outfit, she can send photos to her friends, for them to comment on. She can send videos of her baby's first steps to her parents, and even geotag photos with the location she took them: perfect for vacation photos!

Claire can also use BlackBerry Messenger to create calendars for her groups, so she can schedule family outings with everyone, movie nights with her husband, flag nights she's working late, and more. She can create lists, too, and assign responsibility for list items, so everyone knows what to bring to the next potluck dinner party.

As can happen, Claire once went downtown to meet up with some friends, but couldn't find them. No problem. She used BlackBerry Messenger v5.0 and her BlackBerry® smartphone's onboard GPS module to send her location to the friends she was meeting, so they could find her. She also sent a picture of a nearby landmark, so they would know where to look.

Claire ran into Sam, a friend from college, at a professional mixer, and they decided to exchange BlackBerry smartphone contact information. Sam says, “Here, just scan my barcode,” and uses BlackBerry Messenger's new barcode feature to display a barcode on her BlackBerry smartphone. Claire snaps a picture of it with her BlackBerry smartphone camera, and BlackBerry Messenger v5.0 instantly receives Sam's contact information. Now Claire and Sam can chat whenever they want, and Claire can add Sam to her College Friends group.

With BlackBerry Messenger, staying in touch with friends and family has never been easier. Instantaneous, always-on connectivity: now with BlackBerry® Groups, barcode scanning for adding contacts, easier file sharing, and much more. Get to know the new features:

BlackBerry Messenger is free at BlackBerry App World™ or from your BlackBerry smartphone go to www.blackberry.com/blackberrymessenger.