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• 1 2026-06-29T16:33:27+00:00 A Shift in Consumers 1 plain 2026-06-29T16:33:27+00:00 With the introduction of the BlackBerry Curve, the targeted audience started to widen- with more than half of users being regular consumers (McInnes, 2009), including students and those looking for an elevated mobile experience As the consumer market for BlackBerry began to shift, younger consumers began entering the world of the BlackBerry, especially with the introduction of the Curve 8900, which prioritized entertainment-based features. In a 2010 issue of PC Today, the device is described as “building on its reputation for making solid business phones, RIM added enough consumer-oriented features to the 8900 to address users' personal as well as work requirements.” (PC Today volume 8 issue 4, 2010).
  
  
  Younger consumers cited the convenience of accessing email and the internet as reasons to purchase BlackBerry devices (Firmin et al., 2012). Upon further research, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) also contributed to the shift in consumer demographics (Hern, 2019). BBM acted as a free, more secure alternative to SSMing, and held exclusivity through the fact that only Blackberry users could utilize the application (BlackBerry, 2014). 
  “BBM require[d] users to exchange personal identification numbers (PINs) in addition to their phone numbers before exchanging messages” (Reynolds et al., 2011) and was the first adopter of read receipts (Feng, 2024), which tells you if the other person has read your message (Reynolds et al., 2011). These advanced social features further enabled the transition from business product to consumer.