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For those who use a BlackBerry to interact with others, RIM has some good news. They’ve issued upgrades to their IM clients and social networking apps. These updates are for different purposes. With the IM clients, it’s an expected upgrade. We first heard about it in late August, in conjunction with BIS 2.5. This seems to be a bit ahead of schedule, then. The social networking apps, Facebook and MySpace, get an upgrade so that they’re compatible with OS 5.0.

The upgrades to the IM clients include:

• Add dedicated icons to the Home Screen for one-click access to conversation boxes of specific contacts. The icon appears as the contact’s display picture or avatar.
• Add contacts and display pictures or avatars to the address book to easily instant message, email, SMS, or call right from the address book or conversation box.
• Search through saved conversations
• Add dedicated emoticon icons in the conversation box

This includes Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, AIM, and ICQ.

Again, the MySpace and Facebook updates are for compatibility with OS 5.0, so it won’t be a huge deal for those with lesser operating systems. Sorry, this isn’t the Facebook 1.7 update we learned about earlier this month. You can get Facebook and get MySpace if you have a leaked 5.0.

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