BlackBerry Messenger 5.0 Upgraded

Research In Motion offers a new user interface for its Blackberry Messenger service

RIM’s new d version of its BlackBerry Messenger service features a new user interface together with a variety of expanded capabilities.

New features include:

• New Group Functionality –users can create or join a group of people in order to stay connected and share experiences in real-time. They can chat and share location updates, address books, calendars, photos, lists and more. A single group can contain up to 30 members.

• Bar-code Identity – automatically invite a new contact to join the BlackBerry Messenger contact list by scanning a special bar code on the BlackBerry Messenger screen of their BlackBerry smartphone (i.e. users scan the contact’s bar code identity using the camera on your BlackBerry smartphone). 

• Avatar – users can set up a display picture as their personal avatar, which will automatically be seen by their contacts. BlackBerry Messenger 5.0 also populates avatars for contacts from BlackBerry Contacts.

• Large Media File Transfer – With BlackBerry Messenger 5.0, users can share large media files of up to 6MB in size, including higher resolution pictures and longer voice notes.