BBM Adds Stickers & Group Photos

BlackBerry is dead; at least, that’s the conventional wisdom. But looking at BBM tells a very different story: with 85 million users engaging with the platform on at least a monthly basis, the platform has better numbers than Tango when it finished its $280 million round of funding. To continue to drive those numbers, the company has released stickers in an attempt to monetize the platform, much like many messaging apps before it. The packs of stickers will run at $1.99 to start, but as BBM starts to look at different pricing models, that will likely change. Already, brands have gotten out ahead of BBM stickers; WWE Inc. has a pack called “WWE Superstars,” and other third parties have packs up on the store as well. The update is now available to BlackBerry 10, Android, and iOS users. It will be very interesting to watch BlackBerry build this product out, and whether messaging – ironically, one of the features that brought BlackBerry to prominence in the first place – can truly salvage the company. Whether or not the move works in the long run, it’s indicative of the fact that messaging companies and brands see stickers as a valuable, lucrative way to engage customers on their platforms.