BlackBerry in with the wrong crowd

Research in Motion found a new market for its BlackBerry devices during London's riots - but it's not one it wants.

BlackBerry's easy-to-use messaging service attracted looters this week during Britain's worst rioting since the 1980s.

Analysts say this could damage Research in Motion's (RIM) appeal to its core market of business users.

Some rioters have used the free BlackBerry Messenger to organise, police said, leading for calls for the service to be suspended.

The link between the unrest and the device may hurt the BlackBerry brand, said Jonathan Akwue, a director at the social media unit of London-based Engine Group, a marketing firm whose clients include Coca-Cola and Sony.

"The association is negative, and they've been blamed for it," Akwue. "It is, though, illogical to blame them. They didn't cause the riots."

RIM has been pushing demand from younger consumers to stave off market share advances from newer devices such as Apple's iPhone and handsets based on Google's Android operating system.

More than a decade after its introduction Ontario-based RIM's BlackBerry is now the most popular phone for young adults and teens in Britain, driven by the messenger service, which offers a free alternative to texting, telecommunications regulator Ofcom said this year.

The prevalence of the devices among looters has led to a more than 300-fold increase in online mentions of the messenger service in relation to riots, with a third of those classified as negative and 3 per cent as positive, according to researcher Brandwatch. It said BlackBerry Messenger was cited 27,000 times on Sunday in online references, rising to 31,000 on Tuesday.

BlackBerry's popularity among young consumers has been helped by cheaper prices for more basic models, such as the Curve, and availability on pay-as-you-go service providers including Vodafone Group.

BlackBerry has fallen to the 25th most valuable global brand from 14th last year, according to Millward Brown Optimor's 2011 BrandZ study. The brand has also been used positively with communities using the tool to organise to clean up smashed properties, said Peter Walshe, senior director at Millward Brown.

RIM said on its UK Twitter account it had engaged with authorities to "assist in any way we can".

"Now you see the BlackBerry used for purposes that were perhaps not intended by the designer," said Patrik Karrberg, a researcher at the London School of Economics' Information Systems Innovation Group.

"Young people understand it's a general purpose technology.

"It's in the hands of the users, and you can use it for good or for evil."

- Bloomberg