BBM v6.1 now available in Beta Zone- Includes Animated Avatars, New Emoticons & More!

by Mac Jadalhack

17 November 2011 No Comment

BlackBerry Messenger got a nice update today to version 6.1. Although it’s a beta, you should be quite excited to see what’s in store. This almost feels as exciting as v5.0 launching or maybe even more. In this beta update we see new features including animated avatars, 12 new emoticons, and more! Here’s some highlights from the change log:

Animated avatars* – Now you can access a selection of animated GIFs that come alive when you hover over the avatar. Three animated avatars are available as part of the beta as a sneak peak (including a ‘smile’, ‘laughter’ and ‘in love’) – with a greater selection to come at launch. You can access avatars when changing your display picture within the Avatars folder and can source your own animated GIFs
12 new emoticons – Add to the range of expressions available to enhance your conversations with12 new emoticons to choose from.
Personal Message size increased to 160 characters – We’ve doubled the size of the personal message space to 160 characters. The previous limit was 80 characters.
Colored chat bubbles – Customize the color of chat bubbles with 10 colors to choose from. You can pre-assign these colors to your contacts by simply going into your BBM contacts’ profile and selecting the desired contact chat color from the palette.
Camera / Avatar Integration – Now you can update your BBM avatar right from the BlackBerry camera app by selecting “Set as BBM Display Picture” from the menu options.