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RIM's BlackBerry Developer Conference is going down this week in San Francisco, and as you might expect from a developer-focused event, there are a handful of newsy items that'll affect the development community first and consumers down the road. Here's a roundup of what's what:

• WebWorks development platform. From what we've heard of this so far, it's basically a quick way for web devs to get into the BlackBerry app game by offering a tightly-integrated platform ... for HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript code with hooks to native BlackBerry OS functions and a packager for turning them into "real" BlackBerry apps.
• BlackBerry Messenger Social Platform. RIM's historically held BBM very, very close to the chest, but it's starting to open up a tad with this particular announce. Don't look for BBM on other platforms (yes, we know that's what some of you were hoping to hear), but third-party app developers will now be able to tap into the system for sending and receiving messages, files, user profiles, and invitations. Interestingly, the company is pitching it as a platform for multiplayer gaming, using BBM as a conduit to move information between devices in real time.
• BlackBerry Advertising Service. Google bought AdMob and Apple bought Quattro, but RIM's taking a more democratic approach to its advertising platform, allowing both "simple" and "rich media" ads to be served from a handful of providers "with only three lines of code." It'll be a 60 / 40 revenue split between devs and RIM.
• BlackBerry Payment Service SDK. This one's launching in beta this week, bringing third-party in-app payments over credit card, PayPal, and carrier billing (available on AT&T right now, more carriers by the end of the year). It'll be out of beta before 2010's out.

Nothing on the so-called BlackPad so far, but at any rate, seems like this roundup is great news for anyone looking to slide some content into App World over the next few months.

RIM announces WebWorks development kit, in-app payments, ad platform, and BBM API originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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