Blackberry® For Dummies®, 4th Edition

Chapter 9. Too Cool for E-Mail

In This Chapter

• Sending PIN-to-PIN messages

• Using SMS and MMS

• Setting up and using IM

• Figuring out messaging etiquette

Your BlackBerry is primarily a communication tool, with e-mail messages and phone conversations as the major drivers. It's a wonderful technology, but sometimes, another means of communication is more appropriate. For instance, e-mail isn't the tool of choice for instant messaging — most people would find that method slow and cumbersome. Nor is e-mail the best tool to use when you want to alert someone to something.

Your BlackBerry offers some less-obvious ways to communicate — ways that may serve as the perfect fit for a special situation. In this chapter, you get the scoop on PIN-to-PIN messaging and text messaging (also known as Short Messaging Service, or SMS). We also give you tips on how to turn your BlackBerry into a lean (and not-so-mean) instant messaging (IM) machine.

Sending and Receiving PIN-to-PIN Messages

PIN-to-PIN messaging is based on the technology that underpins two-way pager systems. Unlike sending a standard e-mail, when you send a BlackBerry PIN-to-PIN message, the message doesn't venture outside the Research in Motion (RIM) infrastructure in search of an e-mail server and (eventually) an e-mail inbox. Instead, it stays solidly in the RIM world, where it's shunted through the recipient's network provider until it ends up on the recipient's BlackBerry.

So when you use PIN-to-PIN messaging, that's another way of saying ...