RIM unveiled a new services platform for developers that will allow them to simplify business processes and assemble extremely receptive, location-aware, revenue-generating applications for BlackBerry smartphones. This service platform boasts of advertising, payment, content push and new location services.
The novel and ground-breaking BlackBerry Advertising Service can facilitate developers to incorporate advertising into their BlackBerry applications, thereby assisting them to produce revenue and alleviating the business of mobile advertising. With this service, RIM intends to offer developers the accessibility to a big collection of quality and novel ad units from trusted leading tier and specialty advertising networks like Jumptap, Lat49, Millennial Media, Navteq, 1020 Placecast, Quattro Wireless and Sympatico.ca.
The service will come with ads compliant with the Mobile Marketing Association’s (MMA) guidelines in addition to rich media ads that can totally incorporate with BlackBerry applications. So users can effortlessly begin a call from an ad, insert a calendar entry or contact entry from an ad, and directly link to an application in BlackBerry App World from an ad. The service also comprises real-time, comprehensive, combined coverage of advertising across ad networks, counting ad impressions, clicks, conversions and earnings, plus addition into the Omniture Online Marketing Suite for further superior analytics.
Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion, commented, “The BlackBerry ecosystem is thriving and with the new services platform announced today we will help developers further monetize their applications and build breakthrough, highly responsive, location-aware applications for BlackBerry smartphones. RIM is continuing to provide the tools, technologies and business services that developers need to create and market even more powerful and successful applications on the BlackBerry Application Platform.”
A new BlackBerry Payment Service from RIM can offer BlackBerry developers with fresh prospects to monetize applications by selling digital content like premium content, monthly or yearly subscriptions, and supplementary stages or upgrades for games and other entertainment applications from their applications. The BlackBerry Payment Service also includes merchant services, counting customer billing. BlackBerry Payment Service and an SDK are scheduled to launch in mid 2010.
BlackBerry Push Service lets developers and content providers to offer time-sensitive alerts and up to 8 KB of data to applications. It will be accessible to registered developers from the first half of 2010. The three new location-based services encompass cell site geolocation, reverse geocoding and travel time. Cell site geolocation is a new service that can supply developers with a substitute to GPS, thereby offering an approximation of a smartphone’s position based on cell tower triangulation. Reverse geocoding service switches geolocation coordinates to a precise address for use in BlackBerry applications. In travel time, via a simple API call, developers can include probable travel time within their applications for roughly any location in the US and Canada. The travel time service is scheduled to roll out in the first half of 2010.
The cost of all these new applications is currently unknown.