How BlackBerry Built Real-Time Mobile Messaging

Back when text messages cost 10 cents each, BlackBerry came up with a better way: BlackBerry Messenger, commonly known as BBM. It was the first new idea about messaging in a long time, and it was a huge hit… for a while. Nilay Patel and Joanna Stern join David Pierce to talk about a messaging service that was years ahead of WhatsApp and iMessage, but ultimately fizzled.

If you like the show, ⁠subscribe to the Version History feed⁠ to make sure you get every new episode.

Let us know what you think: 866-VERGE-11 or vergecast@theverge.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices