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Feeling overloaded with BlackBerry news and rumors? We know the feeling. We hear new things almost every day, and it can be tough to keep up with it all. that’s why we’re bringing you BlackBerry News from the Wire every Thursday.

We’ll catch you up on everything ‘Berry that happened over the course of the week. Not only that, but we’ll rank ‘em by importance, so you can more easily skim the items and read the ones of most significance. If you only have time to read one article, for instance, you might want to head down to our 5-star section. It’s All the BlackBerry News Fit to Geek.

RIM continues gaining market share
With a wide range of offerings, it’s no wonder that Research In Motion commands a large market share of smartphones in North America. Even worldwide they don’t do so poorly. In the fourth quarter, Nokia’s share dropped 10 percent, and RIM was there to swoop in, doubling its own worldwide footprint. BlackBerry Cool discusses how RIM can continue gaining in both the consumer and enterprise sectors. The advice is quite optimistic: keep doing what you’re doing with enterprise and keep rolling out interesting devices for consumers. RIM has certainly added to its consumer arsenal with the Storm, Curve 8900, Pearl flip, and even the Bold. Smartphone sales might be dipping because of the economy, but as long as RIM keeps on track they should be able to weather the storm.

AT&T to allow OTA upgrades for OS?
Interesting find by Bla1ze at CrackBerry: It appears RIM and AT&T are poised to allow OTA OS upgrades in the near future. In fact, the rumor says March 12, which is today. We’ll see if that’s actually the case. This is a great development, since it saves a lot of us Mac users the headache of finding a PC to do the upgrade. There is a quirk to this feature, though. It appears it will only work with OS 4.5 and up devices. So those with OS 4.2 or 4.3 who want to upgrade to 4.5 will still have to do it manually. Bummer. Still, it would be beyond awesome to get this up and running on all carriers.

Camera-less 8350i headed for Nextel
There’s been a bit of talk about a camera-less version of a BlackBerry hitting the market for enterprise customers. There’s one about AT&T and the Curve 8900 floating around, though that one doesn’t seem very likely due to AT&T’s migration of their 2G network. Verizon might release a camera-less version of the Niagra, which would be a smart move for them considering their only camera-less Berry right now is the 8830. BlackBerry Home Page found a Nextel launch sheet which shows that they will release a camera-less 8350i. The launch date is listed as TBD, so this could still be a month or so off. Still, it’s a nice option for enterprise customers who can’t tote a cameraphone everywhere.

Telus launches BlackBerry 8230
Best Buy spilled the beans on this one a few weeks ago, so we knew this was coming. Still, it’s good to see Telus launching the BlackBerry Pearl 8230. It’s the CDMA version of the 8220, so there’s not much that’s changed here. It doesn’t appear to have GPS or Wi-Fi, which is a shame. Telus is featuring an all-pink version, which includes not only the area around the keyboard, but the entire faceplate as well. It’ll cost $49.99 on a three-year contract.

How uncool is the BlackBerry?
There’s a neat feature over at Mobile Magazine about the coolness, or lack thereof, of the BlackBerry. The writer owns neither an iPhone nor a BlackBerry, so he’s acting as an impartial third party. The comparison he makes is to the PC and Mac argument, which makes sense considering Apple’s involvement in both, and RIM’s catering to PC users. Of the BlackBerry, he says, “It has its job to do, like handling documents and sending email messages, and it’s able to do that job quite well.” While that’s accurate, he hits the nail on the head with his iPhone remark: “It’s so much more about the marketing than it is about the product itself.” Not that the iPhone is bad or anything. It’s just that the Apple marketing machine makes it out to be so much more than it really is.

WordPress client for BlackBerry coming?
You might be able to tell that BBGeeks is run by WordPress. In fact, I run a ton of sites which use the open-source CMS, and for good reason. It’s powerful, it doesn’t take up much memory, and you can customize it with thousands of plugins. One complaint I have is that there’s no BlackBerry WordPress application. That would make my life so much easier. It appears, though, like we might be getting one soon. Automattic, the firm which created the WordPress for iPhone app, is looking for developers who can help them out with future projects. If this pans out, it will be quite the exciting development indeed.

D.C. doesn’t appreciate the Storm
Not that this should affect anyone’s opinion of the BlackBerry Storm, but it appears that D.C. staffers do not like RIM’s touchscreen offering. This I can understand. They’re perpetually busy, and dealing with a device that has technical issues is not atop their list of things to do. Who has time to update the firmware? If the phone doesn’t work properly out of the box, people are going to complain, and that gets amplified when we’re talking about intense work. Again, don’t let it affect your opinion — they’re just politicians, after all.

Rogers to block stolen BlackBerrys from network
You might want to think twice before buying your next BlackBerry on eBay. I’m not saying they’re all stolen, but there’s always the chance of that when you buy from third parties. If this is the case, and you’re on Rogers network, you might find your IMEI blocked. BlackBerry Cool has an FAQ on the matter. If you’ve purchased a Rogers BlackBerry from a third party, you might want to give it a read.

MetroPCS and the prepaid BlackBerry. Is anyone going to pay over $400 for the device if the service is $50/month and doesn’t require a contract? It’s an interesting trade-off. Unfortunately, traveling with this BlackBerry won’t be easy, since the data is only available in certain markets.

Free Tetris for BlackBerry. My favorite BlackBerry Tetris clone just got an upgrade. The game play isn’t any better (it’s tough to improve the Tetris game play, no?), but if it can save some battery life I’m happy.

BerryBuzz LED alerts for BlackBerry. I just installed this app and am already loving it. Changing the LED color dependent on the type of message saves me a lot of time during the day.

eReader for BlackBerry drops. I’m not sure if this is any better than MobiPocket, but it’s worth a shot. OTA download link is here.

Don’t forget the sale at the BBGeeks Store! You can use the 10% discount on the Themes we reviewed on Wednesday. Pretty decent deal if you ask me.

Racing Formula 1 with a BlackBerry Storm. First it was an RC car, and now it’s a real F1 car powered by the BlackBerry Storm. That is, if you believe that they actually rigged the thing up.

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