Happy Friday #TeamBlackBerry! It’s Five Tip Friday, and today I’d like to share five reasons why you should consider using Social Feeds – a great app built right in to BlackBerry® 6 OS and BlackBerry® 7 OS smartphones. Using the Social Feeds app, you can stay up to date with your social networks and receive the latest RSS news and information from your favorite blogs and websites – all in one location.

Before we begin, if you aren’t familiar with Social Feeds, check out my post on How to use Social Feeds 2.0 to learn more.

1. Add your own Bit.ly® account

The next time you want to share a link with friends, you can send them a short link that will be created using your Bit.ly account. This will allow you to measure things such as how many clicks your link got and from which countries your link was viewed (one of my favorite stats!). To add your Bit.ly account details to Social Feeds, complete the following steps:

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog »

(Originally posted on the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog)

We’re super excited about this year’s BlackBerry World™ – plans are well underway and we can’t wait for May 1st, 2012. Registration is now officially open, so head over to www.blackberryworld.com and reserve your spot ASAP.

BlackBerry World is the largest BlackBerry® conference of the year where the community of BlackBerry users, partners, business leaders, and IT decision makers meet to learn of the latest innovations, upcoming BlackBerry products and services, mobile strategy, and to check out live demonstrations. The conference is also a fantastic networking opportunity to meet with individuals in similar roles facing similar challenges and industry trends.

BlackBerry World, May 1-3, 2012 in Orlando, Florida
Register here

What can you expect to dig into this year?

• BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion – the future of device management in the enterprise
• Looking ahead to BlackBerry® 10
• BlackBerry Business Cloud Services: Moving your infrastructure forward
• …and much more! Stay tuned for details on sessions and the keynote address

Stay up to date on all of the latest info by keeping an eye on www.blackberryworld.com, and where you can sign up for updates. Leading up to May 1st (and on site at the event), you can follow @BlackBerry4Biz on Twitter® as well as coming back to the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog, and join the discussion on LinkedIn® to get excited and keep tabs on all of the action.

Did you attend BlackBerry World 2011? What was your favorite part of the conference? Share in the comments.

(Originally posted on the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog)

We knew developers were excited about our latest BlackBerry® PlayBook™ offer for Android™ developers when we announced it two weeks ago. You asked that Native C/C++, HTML5, Adobe® AIR®, and Qt developers have a chance to participate and we answered by opening the offer to all developers.

Today was going to be the deadline for the offer – but due to the overwhelming interest in the offer, we’re extending it one more time. How much interest? There have been over 1,500 app submissions as of last Friday and over 6,600 new developers registered in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront.  We have teams working around the clock to approve vendor registrations and app submissions.  Because of the high demand, approvals are taking longer than normal – we appreciate your patience.

To help speed up the approval process of your application, we strongly recommend the following:

• Before submitting your application to BlackBerry App World, please make sure to remove all mention of the word “Android” from your application – both in the application description and the application itself.
• Please remove all links to Android Marketplace from within your application.
• When submitting your Android application to BlackBerry App World, please make sure to select a minimum OS of 2.0.
• Please make sure your application is signed. For more information on code signing, please view the code signing documentation on the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps webpage.

If you’re not a registered BlackBerry App World vendor, you now have until 11:59 PM EST on February 15, 2012 to register at appworld.blackberry.com/isvportal.

All vendors (new and existing) now have until 11:59 PM EST on March 2, 2012 to submit your application to BlackBerry App World. Check out our offer FAQ and we’ll be updating the official terms & conditions later today.

The BBM™ Music team has been very busy over the last few months launching our BBM-connected social music service in eight different countries around the world. We are excited that BBM Music* is now available for download in Canada, the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and Australia – with more regions still to come, so stay tuned! If you haven’t yet tried BBM Music, we are even more excited to let you know that in the month of February 2012, you can download BBM Music FREE for up to 4 months** in Canada or the US, or FREE for up to 6 months** in the UK, Spain & Italy.

Along with the free trials, we’ve added some new features to BBM Music v1.1 that we wanted to share with you.

New features for BBM Music »

[YouTube link for mobile viewing]

At CES 2012, we met with Andreas from Groupon in the Ask the Experts area of the BlackBerry Booth to chat about the Groupon experience on both BlackBerry® smartphones and BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets. Beyond the intuitive interface and fantastic visual experience that the apps provide, Andreas was excited to highlight “Groupon Now!” deals, which use the GPS in your BlackBerry device to find nearby deals – it’s great for grabbing a quick lunch with a friend on the cheap. Check out the video above for the full scoop, and to grab the app for your smartphone or BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, head over to BlackBerry App World™.

Have you use the “Groupon Now!” feature yet? Share in the comments!

Hi, I’m Ryan. I’m a Hardware Engineering Technician in the Hardware Support Lab at Research In Motion® (RIM®). Today, I’m going to give you an inside look at the testing we do during the development of your BlackBerry® smartphone to help ensure it lives up to the high standards that BlackBerry is known for. Our team works to make sure that your BlackBerry smartphone is both durable and reliable – which basically means we try to break them so that you, #TeamBlackBerry, would be hard pressed to do the same. =D

Your BlackBerry smartphone is your connection to your friends and family. It is your lifeline, and we want it to always stay in operating condition so that you can stay in contact with the important people in your life. So when you accidentally drop your BlackBerry smartphone, or sit on it, or spill your morning coffee on it, we want it to keep working.

So how do we work to ensure that your BlackBerry smartphone will keep working? Well, we drop them, bend them, shock them, soak them and zap them…a lot. We also do some nerdy things like reading digital signals to make sure everything is speaking the right language – they look like this:

Read on to check out the durability testing videos! »

It’s that time of year again, #TeamBlackBerry (the most wonderful time of the year, some would argue) – the big football game is happening on Sunday, February 5th, 2012, and if you happen to have a BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet handy, we want to help you keep up with the action! There’s a ton of great apps available for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet that can assist you in tracking stats, checking scores, playing some virtual football yourself and even throwing an awesome party. (Because really, who can resist a good football tailgate party?)

The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet can help you get the most out of Sunday football fun, and we think you’ll agree – it’s a great way to stay connected during the big game! This tablet multitasks better than any other, so you can plan, cook, watch, play, chat and trash-talk while you watch at home, at a friend’s, or at the bar.

You’ve got two days left until kickoff, so don’t delay – equip your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with these applications today and get ready to score a touchdown.

Read more about the BlackBerry PlayBook Football Apps »

Greetings, Team BlackBerry! We’re eager to talk about BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 2.0 after revealing a sneak peek at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas – but before we get back to unveiling the features, have a look at these early reviews for BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0!

@BlackBerry Just watched a video about the BlackBerry phone/PlayBook remote! So excited! Awesome CES show this year.—
brandon (@brandonMDCXVIII) January 11, 2012

Just watched the CES demo of the @Blackberry #Playbook OS 2 and it's looking wicked. Good work guys, Looks like it might be worth the wait!—
Mike Johnston (@cmscritic) January 10, 2012

Cannot wait for @BlackBerry #playbook OS2.0! Use my bb as a keyboard and trackpad AND as a remote control for media!! 2012 is gonna #bebold!—
Tony W (@tony22s) January 10, 2012

New @BlackBerry OS on PlayBook looks great. Fills most of the obvious gaps and makes the tablet very compelling.—
Andy Bovingdon (@MrBov) January 10, 2012

Read more reviews of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 »