BlackBerry Acquires ScrOON To Help Make BBM Profitable

BlackBerry’s BBM app is free to use and comes bundled with BlackBerry phones, and has also made its way, also for free, onto iOS and Android devices. With the app being free, how does BlackBerry plan on making money from it? After all WhatsApp has a subscription service and LINE has in-app purchases to help generate revenue, so what can BBM do to help make money? While that remains to be seen, it looks like BlackBerry has recently made an acquisition in the form of ScrOOn that is a company that helps to manage the social media pages of large companies, such as Warner Bros. Entertainment, LVMH, and etc.

According to ScrOOn’s founder, Alexandre Mars, he states that the acquisition is part of BlackBerry’s bid to make a profit from their BBM platform. One of the ways could be from dedicated BlackBerry channels focused on a specific theme, and like we can see from the companies that ScrOOn helps to manage, these channels could range from entertainment to fashion and luxury goods, where companies can pay to have sponsored posts in these channels that target a specific group of customers. It sounds like an interesting idea and we have to wonder when such an initiative will kick off, but if anything it looks like the wheels are already in motion with this acquisition.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: BBM, BlackBerry