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Guide to Using Blackberry Messenger

Installing Messenger 5.0 

Heading into App World, it’s no surprise that - at least at the time of writing - Messenger 5.0 is sitting at the very top of the free apps chart. If it’s not there, Messenger can also be found simply with a quick search. App World is simple to use even for complete novices and there’s a search shortcut available from the store’s front page - it’s the magnifying glass icon nestled in the row of buttons at the bottom of the screen. Select the BlackBerry Messenger entry and then hit the download option.

Once that’s finished - it shouldn’t take long as the current version of Messenger only weighs in at a couple of megabytes - go to ‘My World’ within App World and select the Messenger entry to install the software. While App World may be easy to use, BlackBerrys do have a habit of hiding downloads within the phone’s menu. Messenger will end up within the ‘Instant Messaging’ folder as standard when using the 5.0 edition of BlackBerry OS.

Creating your Messenger account 

Upon booting-up Messenger for the first time, users are prompted to enter a name for their Messenger account to operate under. There’s no additional filling in of any user data, it‘s essentially just a callsign. Once this is done, users are free to get started with Messenger.

To customise the account further, users need to select the tab bearing their Messenger name, right at the top of the application’s home screen. Doing so leads onto another menu from where users can customise their profile. This isn’t Facebook, so there’s no entering of hobbies or favourite films - thank goodness - but there is the option to display a status message and show contacts what you’re listening to, music-wise.

Adding an avatar 

Adding an avatar - a visual icon to go along with your name - is done from this account screen too. With everyone from business people to teenagers to politicians using social networks ever more prolifically as a primary means of communication, picking a picture to go along with your online presence is surprisingly - perhaps even disturbingly - important.

Once in the account settings pane, users simply need to tap on the square next to the display name box, right at the top of the screen. Images can be taken from the BlackBerry’s gallery, using the built-in camera or from any screenshot apps users may have installed.

Once an image has been selected, a square portion of it needs be highlighted for use as the actual avatar. Here’s the slightly tricky bit though - screen taps or central button presses only zoom further into the image. To pick a selection, users need to hit the back button and then choose ‘save’ when the ensuing pop-up appears.

Adding a contact using a barcode 

Users can find contacts within BlackBerry Messenger using their display name or phone number, which is generally the traditional way to find people with these sorts of connected networks. But there’s also a much niftier way to add people too by using their barcode. Each account within BlackBerry Messenger is identified with a unique barcode.

Used correctly, these barcodes can be an incredibly handy business networking tool as users can add contacts directly, without any typing, just by taking a picture of the barcode using the Blackberry’s built-in camera. To add someone using this method, select ‘Invite Contact’ from the Messenger home screen and then ‘Scan a person’s barcode’.

This activates the camera, leaving you to focus in on the barcode, just like any other photo. While it may be tempting to get up close and personal with the barcode, the BlackBerry camera’s lens needs to be some distance from it in order to focus sufficiently. To get the barcode displayed on a Blackberry’s screen to be scanned by someone else, users need to head to the account settings screen by selecting the bar bearing their own display name at the top of the home screen. On this settings menu, there’s a ‘Display My Barcode’ option down at the bottom.

Advanced barcoding 

While adding contacts using barcodes in person is an incredibly handy feature, whether you bump into someone on the train, in a lift or conference, there’s no reason to keep a BlackBerry barcode a secret if you’re looking to expand your contacts database.

It’s the particular geometry of a user’s barcode that matters rather than the fact it’s being displayed on a BlackBerry screen. Within the BlackBerry online community, it’s commonplace for users to freely display their Blackberry barcode next to their username in public online spaces such as forums.

It has the potential to gather some unwanted attention, but it’s certainly a way to get out there. Other ways users could implement the BlackBerry barcode include printing it out on letters to business partners and, well, you could even include it inside a Christmas card.

Setting up a group

Once users have amassed a healthy selection of contacts, ordering and organising them can become an issue. Arranging contacts into groups is one simple solution to this particular problem. The Group menu lies just below your contacts list on the BlackBerry Messenger home screen.

It features a pair of options that let users create their own new groups or add a new group with a barcode. So, joining a specific group is a case of finding the group’s barcode rather than just searching online. Although this means that they’re not as accessible as the popular – but ultimately largely frivolous – groups of Facebook, it also means that they’re easier to keep secure.

Securing a group 

Although BlackBerry Messenger groups are a little harder to infiltrate than those of some online communities, users can still put extra measures in place to make sure their groups remained populated only by those invited.

These additional security settings live on the Group Details page, which can be found simply by selecting the particular group from the Windows Messenger home screen, then selecting the group’s name from the group’s own home screen.

The Group Details page allows some light customisation of how your group looks, but further down the page are the security measures under an Administration heading. They allow you to reserve invitations to admins only and set an administrator password. While still hardly a particularly hardcore security measure, it allows users to retain a little more control over the group’s membership.

Adding group events
 
While groups are useful for simply categorising your contacts, they can also be used as a shared online organisation point thanks to the calendar function. From within this option, which can be accessed from Group Activities on the group home screen, you can add shared appointments that could be used to alert group members of meetings or deadlines. Setting up one of these shared events is much like doing so in an application like Microsoft Outlook.

From the traditional calendar view, users select the date and time of the event before filling in exactly what it entails. These events will then be shared with group members, accessible through the group calendar.