On January 30th, more than 200 developers got together to celebrate the launch of BlackBerry 10 at the Red Bull house in Recife, Brazil.

You can see all the 154 pictures on our #BBJamSessions Facebook Page

Helex, a BlackBerry 10 developer, submitted his application – one that was originally rejected because it was missing some key criteria – for the Built For BlackBerry program. His application was ClipMan – according to Helex, it’s “a small clipboard manager. That’s it. It watches for changes in the Clipboard while opened and stores every text that appears in a small database. Such a clipboard history can be very handy while texting.”

ClipMan was a well-built and useful application; however, as per the Built For BlackBerry guidelines, it did not meet the criteria as it stood. In Helex’s words: “This single useful aspect is not enough for the Built for BlackBerry certificate. I tried, trust me. You will get: ‘basically only a single core function’.” In order to qualify for the Built For BlackBerry program, Helex had to update various aspects of his app to get approved.

Here’s a quick snapshot at some of the updates to the original version of the app that made ClipMan Built For BlackBerry certified:

1. Have a clear, functional design from the start. “The old version was for me, as the developer of the app, clear and understandable. The color was indicative enough, and all features worked. But as I learned in a session about good design in Amsterdam, the application should work for everyone, including color-blind people. Those user groups had an obvious handicap at the old version of ClipMan.”
2. Share app details. “The old version was very rudimentary. The new version is clear in the beginning and more detailed in the long text.”
3. Provide a context menu. “It was not really needed since in the old version, every function was available by simply opening an item. But if I understadd the design guidelines correctly, every List View should have a context Menu. The user expects this behavior.”
4. Make it easily searchable. “I added a search function to the list. Personally, I have the list only filled with the stuff I’m currently using, but others may use this application in a different way. So, a search function was needed.”
5. Integrate to BlackBerry 10. “Built for BlackBerry means built especially for BlackBerry 10, and so the application should integrate itself in every aspect into the BlackBerry 10 system. I would say now that we’ve got the BlackBerry 10 flow.”
6. Make sure that it is shareable. “Since the share functionality was a selection criterion at the BFB checklist, ClipMan had a share button even at the first version.”
7. Create a positive store experience. “I had two versions of ClipMan in the store: a free version, and a paid version. Sadly, this is also a bad design. I got this explained at several places so I guess it played a role in it being rejected: ‘Bad store experience.’”
8. Make sure to check for bugs. “My app was unable to handle different text encoding correctly. I found the bug, and it is now able to store and handle Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Japanese and many other character encoding.”

To read Helex’s full explanation (with screenshots) of how he got ClipMan accepted for the Built For BlackBerry program, click here.

What does this mean for you? It means that you can also build an app that is Built for BlackBerry certified. We’re here to help you achieve it, so please contact us if you have questions about your app. We want you to Build for BlackBerry!

If Remco’s interview piqued your interested, make sure you check out more of Distimo and how you can integrate it into your BlackBerry 10 app.

Has using analytics helped improve your app and app sales? Let us know down in the comments below!

Don’t get me wrong, I love roller coasters and whacky amusement park rides. But this took things to a whole new level.

“3… 2… 1…” came the countdown behind me… and 11 seconds later I was on the ground.

This is for you BlackBerry Developers!

This price tier update includes updated currency exchange rates and VAT requirements. These updates will help to position your content items to be more competitive and attractive to customers in the UK and Eurozone markets. The goal of this adjustment is to ensure prices are in line with currency fluctuations and ensure content within BlackBerry World is competitive.

The price change is completely automatic and will not impact the availability of your content items to customers. You are not required to take any action.

So what does this mean for the customer?

Currently, the lowest tier in the UK is £1.00. Once the price tier changes are implemented, the lowest tier will be £0.75. For Euros the tier will vary by country. For example, in France the current lowest tier is €0.99. With the pricing tier changes, the new lowest tier will be €0.89.

Should you like to adjust the price tier for your content items in a given country you can freely do so within the BlackBerry World vendor portal at any time.

Please note that if you make any changes to the pricing of your content items there will be a delay of up to 24 hours until the prices appear.

This weekend during the BlackBerry Community & Android Port-A-Thons we witnessed something very special happen, something which can energize all our developer community!

We had over 1,000 people around the globe come together for 37.5 hours and submit over 15,000 apps for BlackBerry 10. After five hours we had over 4,000 apps submitted and after nine hours we had over 6,300 apps submitted. One of the developers put this into perspective when he tweeted

@lougazzola Impressive. I remember it taking over a year for AppWorld to get its first 6,300 apps…

— Eric Harty (@Ebscer) January 12, 2013

The Twitterverse was a buzz with over 1,200 #BB10Portathon mentions. 15,060 apps submitted shows that it’s easy to build a BlackBerry 10 app.

We’ve witnessed a huge transition of developers who now believe in the potential for success on the platform and take the time to create an incredible number of apps. The RIM team creating our developer SDKs and tools have made it easy for developers to bring their apps to BlackBerry 10 – in the language you like writing in. Here’s what our community is saying:

@lougazzola @leinir @4shelbysdevs I agree with this. I can even port my android app/webworks/phonegap in under 1 minute really.

— NemOry Oliver (@NemOry) January 14, 2013

@nemory @lougazzola @leinir @4shelbysdevs agreed.. I ported my Adobe Air app in around a minute packaged and signed.

— Stephen (@NZCoderGuy) January 14, 2013

Erik Oros (Application Development Consultant) fielded questions in his area of expertise (HTML5) and I (Lou Gazzola, Senior Marketing Manager) hosted the event. Both of us were on for the complete 37.5 hours. RIM had over 20 experts from around the world that helped developers and I am blown away by the community support with “Oliver”, “K Cheung” and “Michael K” spending most of the time porting apps AND helping the community.

We also had our partners available with representatives from Marmalade, AppendTo (jQuery), PhoneGap, and Appcelerator participating. After witnessing what was happening many of our partners stayed well beyond their scheduled hours.

What an incredible effort from the entire community!  I want to extend a very heart felt Thank You to everyone that participated!!

BlackBerry developer events come in all shapes and sizes. We really want to bring BlackBerry 10 to developers so they can create something truly amazing – and as you may have noticed recently, #TeamBlackBerry never stops, especially in an exciting time like this. So we have decided to step it up a notch…well, actually, almost 6000 mt (or 20,000 ft).

On January 20th, 2013 – just 10 days before the launch event for BlackBerry 10 – ten intrepid developers will be trekking to the summit of Kilimanjaro. On the way to the top, we will be developing a charity application in the most strenuous hackathon ever – and we want to take you with us.

We will build and deploy the application right at the top of the mountain – but there will be a lot of activity throughout the climb. We will have BlackBerry 10 devices to record it all so that you can enjoy the adventure later, but you can also join the brave crew on Twitter for live-tweeting during the event.

Besides the fun and the adventurous coding, we will also be raising money for a charity. If you wish to contribute and help us in this challenge, you can go to this site and give your donation to Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders.

See you at the top!

@BlackBerryLuca, @mweitzel, @lelany, @alexbowker, @glennthestein, @crwblyth, @BenQLive, @ecolquhoun and two other Twitterless climbers

And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

So ends King Harry’s speech before the battle of Agincourt in Henry the 5^th. It is one of my favorite speeches in all of Shakespeare.  I have been thinking of it a lot recently, because that lofty inspirational speech also is a wonderful metaphor for the challenge ahead of RIM and my team, and beautifully articulates the kind of passion I have for what we do every day.

Since I started with RIM last summer, my mantra has been “not business as usual”.  We have set out to be the best company in mobile for developers. We have built an amazing team of people who work with developers because developers are smart, passionate, opinionated, outspoken, funny and genuinely interesting people.  We know that developers are the ones who understand that it’s OK if you don’t get a UDP joke.  For us, it’s not just a job.  It’s a calling.  Developers are our people.

This week was one of stark contrasts.  Stark.

We kicked off our annual developer conference, BlackBerry® Jam Americas yesterday at the San Jose Convention Center.  The energy in the San Jose conference center was a palpable reflection of the enthusiasm we have for what we do – I shook hands, met people, participated in a meet up with a bunch of Argentinean developers via video link, took photographs, was photographed – I even autographed phones.  It was a huge blast.

We had some gifts for our developer community too.

• The news that BlackBerry 10 is API feature complete – devs can get to work in earnest on BlackBerry 10 apps.
• A preview of BlackBerry App World™ for BlackBerry 10, and how it will drive more sales and downloads for them.
• The news that some amazing big names, like foursquare and Cisco, are building for BlackBerry 10.
• Hard dates that they could build their own schedules for software delivery around.
• The launch of the 10k Reasons to Believe campaign.
• The launch of our BlackBerry Elite developers program.
• The launch of our new BlackBerryDev YouTube channel
• The upcoming BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour for enterprise

And more.

As I said, yesterday was a day of stark contrasts.

One of the gifts we made for our developer community was a music video.  Marty, Chris, and I made a rework of REO Speedwagon’s Keep on Loving You with some tongue in cheek lyrics (how many singers do you know that can croon the phrase “mobile endeavours” with a straight face?).  We did it because we hate those corporate “energy” videos that are such a staple of conference introductions everywhere, and because we knew that our community would love the humour.  It was risky, but we had previously covered another song for BlackBerry 10 Jam Orlando, and the BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour and our developer community loved that one.

This time we put it up on YouTube, on our new developer channel.   And for the last 24 hours, our developer community has told us over and over again how much they loved that gift, and how much they appreciated the humor in it.

However, the mainstream media didn’t get it.   Some called it weird.  One outlet said that it would be the reason for RIM’s eventual demise – I had hoped for impact, but perhaps not at that scale.  One commenter criticized my waistline.  I know… I’m 48, and it is time to hit the gym more often.

I don’t expect the mainstream media to get it.   They’re not developers.  They don’t have the context.   And frankly, what most want to write about is the drama around RIM.

My team and I, we wear our hearts on our sleeves for this community. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters, we’re making a difference.  We have more than doubled the applications available on BlackBerry in 12 months.  We announced 105,000 applications approved for sale on BlackBerry App World, yesterday, of which over 25,000 are PlayBook.  We have more than doubled the size of RIM’s developer community in the last 12 months.   And I know that if you ask any developer who builds for BlackBerry today, that our openness, and interaction with this community is dramatically different from what it was a year ago and that they love what we have done for them.   This conference, BlackBerry Jam Americas, is a learning event, but it’s also a celebration of our community and we were there to celebrate their successes and ours.

This morning, reflecting on the situation, I realized that when we launch BlackBerry 10 early next year, the support and success of our developer community is all that will matter to me.

And those critics shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here.

It’s my pleasure to announce the 2012 BlackBerry Developer Community Awards!

It’s your turn to reward a fellow BlackBerry® developer who writes an awesome blog, always replies on Twitter®, or who has the answer on the BlackBerry Developer Support Forums. The BlackBerry Developer Community Awards is a community-based recognition program that relies on you, the BlackBerry development community.

There are six award categories and we need you to nominate and vote for the developers, evangelists and contributors that exemplify our community’s creativity and collaborative spirit.

Here’s how it works: from now until Sunday September 16th, you can make one nomination per category, either via our online form or Twitter. On Tuesday September 18th, we will announce the finalists in each category.

When the nominees are finalized on the 18th, we will open the platform for voting. Voting will close on Wednesday September 26th. We’ll tally the votes, and will announce the winners live! The ceremony will take place at the BlackBerry® Jam Americas TweetUp, located in the BlackBerry Social Lounge from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.

Here are the categories:

• Must-Follow BlackBerry Developer on Twitter
• Must-Read BlackBerry Developer Blog
• Must-See BlackBerry Developer Evangelist
• Most Helpful BlackBerry Team Member on Twitter
• Most Helpful Contributor to the BlackBerry Developer Forums
• Best Open Source Contribution

Here’s how to nominate:

• Through our online form, or
• via Twitter. (Just send a tweet that mentions @BlackBerryDev, the #BBDevAwards hashtag, and the category.)

And here’s the timeline:

• Now – September 16th: Open nominations
• September 18th – September 25th: Open voting
• September 26th: Winners announced at BlackBerry Jam Americas TweetUp

So get to it! Now is the time to recognize your fellow BlackBerry developers for their contributions. Head over to the BlackBerry Developer Community Awards page and nominate your favorites. We’ll see you at BlackBerry Jam Americas in San Jose, where we’ll announce the winners!

What do you think? Will some awards be more tightly contested than others? Is there a clear winner in any category? Sound off in the comments below.

BlackBerry Jam Americas – Sept 25-27, San Jose CA

BlackBerry® Jam Americas 2012 is a showcase for the bold, new direction BlackBerry is heading with the upcoming BlackBerry® 10 platform. The event attracts developers and industry leaders who understand the power of BlackBerry and want to build their success with the platform. Whether you’re a Native, Web, or Android™ developer, don’t miss this opportunity to explore the powerful, game-changing BlackBerry 10 platform.

Join us, September 25-27 in San Jose, California. Register Now and use promo code DJAA45 to register for only $299.00