Helping a familiar messenger become more useful, engaging, and scalable
BBM Messenger was already a major communication platform when Emtek, or PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi Tbk., took over the service. Although originally associated with BlackBerry devices, BBM was available on Android and iOS, giving it the opportunity to reach a much wider audience.
The next challenge was growth. BBM wanted to strengthen its online presence and expand beyond messaging by offering news, video, music, games, shopping, services, polls, and other forms of content inside BBM Discover.
Suitmedia partnered with BBM to design a clearer digital experience, develop interactive features, and strengthen the technical foundation behind the platform. The work helped BBM add more value without overwhelming users, while turning the messenger into a broader destination for communication, entertainment, information, and group participation.
More features created a discovery problem
1. BBM was evolving beyond messaging
Messaging was still the core of BBM, but the platform wanted to offer more reasons for users to open the app. BBM Discover brought together content and services that extended beyond one-to-one or group communication.
This created new opportunities, but also a risk. When a platform adds many content types, users may struggle to understand where to begin or how to find the service they want.
The challenge was to make BBM feel richer without making it feel crowded. Users should be able to discover new features naturally while still reaching the communication functions they already relied on.
2. A large content library needed stronger structure
BBM had to organize different types of content, including news, video, music, games, shopping, services, and interactive experiences.
Each category had its own user expectations. News needed to be easy to scan. Polls needed a simple path to participation. Games needed clear rules and progress. Service features needed direct actions.
Without a clear information hierarchy, the platform could become difficult to navigate. The more content BBM added, the more important it became to classify and present that content consistently.
3. Users needed to understand the value of each feature quickly
A new feature only creates value when users understand why they should try it.
BBM needed to communicate feature benefits without relying on long explanations. Users should be able to recognize what a feature did, how to start, and what they would gain from participating.
This required a clear balance between information and action. The interface had to introduce each service while making the next step obvious.
4. BBM needed to appeal to users in different markets
BBM serves a global user base. Different markets had different news preferences, cultural interests, entertainment habits, and expectations around digital services.
A feature that worked well in Indonesia might need different content or presentation elsewhere. The platform needed a structure that could support local relevance without creating entirely separate products for each market.
This made consistency important. Users needed to recognize the same BBM experience while receiving content appropriate to their location and interests.
5. Engagement needed to extend beyond passive content consumption
BBM Discover could provide content, but BBM also wanted users to interact with it.
Polls, comments, sharing, group games, and personalized recommendations gave users a more active role. These features could increase the time users spent within the platform and create additional reasons to return.
However, interaction had to remain simple. If participating required too many steps, users would return to passive browsing or leave the feature altogether.
6. The platform had to connect digital and television experiences
BBM wanted to create a new way for users to interact with television content through mobile voting.
Television audiences could watch a program, but BBM Polls allowed them to participate directly from the app. This created a bridge between a mass broadcast medium and a personal digital device.
The challenge was to make voting fast enough to fit live or time-sensitive programming while also showing users that their participation mattered.
7. Personalization required useful signals from user behavior
BBM News wanted to deliver local and international stories across markets. But a global news feed can quickly become overwhelming if every user receives the same information.
BBM needed a way to understand which stories users considered important and use that behavior to improve future recommendations.
Personalization had to be useful without becoming confusing. Users should see more relevant content while still having access to broader categories and discovery.
8. Group interaction needed a compelling reason to return
Messaging groups are often used for conversation, but BBM wanted to create more structured shared activities.
BBM Group War introduced a timed quiz played within group chats. The feature needed to create enough urgency and reward to make people return, while remaining simple enough for an entire group to understand.
The game also had to connect participation with an external digital wallet, adding another layer of technical and user experience complexity.
9. Scale required a stronger technical foundation
BBM had more than 100 million monthly active users. A platform serving that level of activity needs to handle data, storage, content delivery, identity, monitoring, and security reliably.
The challenge was not just to build features. It was to support them in an environment that could scale without requiring the team to manage every infrastructure component manually.
Technical performance was part of the user experience. If news loaded slowly, polls failed, or group games became unavailable, the platform would lose trust and engagement.
Designing a clear, playful, and scalable platform
1. Build a strong visual hierarchy
Suitmedia introduced a neat, modern, flat design style for the BBM experience.
The interface used a clean white background to create space between different content elements. This helped users focus on the information and actions that mattered rather than processing unnecessary decoration.
Visual hierarchy was especially important because BBM had many features. Users needed to understand which elements were headings, descriptions, actions, categories, or supporting information.
2. Use bright color with discipline
Bright colors were used to highlight important items and create a more playful experience.
Color helped distinguish features and guide attention, but it had to remain balanced against the background and content. Too much color would create noise, while too little would make the interface feel flat.
The resulting system allowed BBM to feel energetic without losing structure. The design could communicate that the platform was more than a utility while remaining easy to browse.
3. Create a consistent icon language
Icons were used to support recognition and guide users toward actions.
A consistent icon system can reduce the amount of reading needed to understand an interface. Users begin to associate visual symbols with recurring functions such as sharing, voting, navigating, or opening content.
This helped BBM manage complexity. Instead of explaining every function at length, the design used a combination of icons, labels, and layout to make actions more intuitive.
4. Standardize content formats
Suitmedia established a consistent design language using content types such as short descriptions, supporting blurbs, and clear calls to action.
This gave different BBM features a shared structure. Users could understand how to approach a news item, a poll, or another service even when the content itself was different.
Consistency reduced cognitive effort. Users did not need to learn a completely new interface every time they explored another feature within BBM Discover.
5. Organize the menu around user intent
A well-structured menu and content classification allowed users to move directly toward the information or service they wanted.
The design avoided placing every feature at the same level. Categories helped users understand the breadth of BBM while keeping the journey manageable.
This was important for both frequent and occasional users. Experienced users could reach familiar features quickly, while new users could discover the platform through clear groupings.
6. Keep the interface readable and focused
The design made careful use of white space and avoided excessive visual elements.
This improved readability and helped users scan content quickly. A clean interface was particularly important on mobile screens, where too many elements can create a crowded experience.
The principle was simple: the interface should help users understand content, not compete with it.
7. Use BBM Discover as the platform’s expansion layer
BBM Discover acted as a single destination for additional content and services.
This helped BBM expand beyond messaging without changing the core communication experience. Users could choose to explore news, video, music, games, shopping, and other services when they wanted to.
The structure created optionality. BBM could provide more value without forcing every user to engage with every feature.
Turning television viewing into mobile participation
1. Create BBM Polls as a bridge between media formats
BBM Polls allowed users to vote for television shows, artists, movies, singers, and other entertainment subjects through the app.
This connected a passive viewing experience with direct audience participation. Users could respond from their phones while watching or following a television program.
The feature helped BBM become part of the entertainment experience rather than remaining a separate communication tool.
2. Keep the voting flow simple
Suitmedia designed the voting process to minimize effort.
Users could open BBM Discover, select Polls, choose a category, vote, and review their previous activity in the History section.
The flow was intentionally direct. A user should be able to participate without reading a long explanation or navigating through unrelated content.
3. Organize polls into three clear categories
Polls were grouped into Popular Polls, Featured Polls, and History.
This structure supported different user needs. Popular Polls showed what other people were engaging with. Featured Polls highlighted selected opportunities. History helped users track what they had already done.
Categorization made the feature easier to understand and reduced the risk that users would feel lost in a long list of active polls.
4. Show participation beyond the individual vote
Users could see real-time voting results and understand how the wider audience was responding.
This created a social layer around the poll. People were not voting in isolation; they were participating in a national or broader audience response.
Users could also comment on polls and share them with friends, helping the feature spread through existing BBM relationships.
5. Connect polls to live broadcast outcomes
BBM Polls were used to support live broadcasts such as the SCTV Music Awards and Puteri Indonesia beauty pageant.
This gave users a clear reason to participate. Their votes became part of a visible event outcome rather than disappearing inside the app.
The feature demonstrated how mobile interaction could make television more participatory and relevant to digitally active audiences.
Making news more personal and useful
1. Build a news feature for a global audience
BBM News delivered local and international news and entertainment stories from major outlets across several markets.
The feature expanded BBM Discover into an information service. Users could read business, sports, entertainment, health, technology, and other categories within the app.
This created a new reason to return regularly. Messaging may be occasional, but news offers a more continuous stream of relevant content.
2. Use categories to reduce information overload
News was organized into channels such as business, sports, entertainment, health, and technology.
Categories allowed users to move toward subjects they cared about without scanning an undifferentiated feed.
They also supported discovery. Users could explore a category when they had a general interest rather than searching for one specific story.
3. Use reading behavior to improve recommendations
BBM News used signals from user reading behavior to understand which stories mattered to each person.
Those signals helped tailor future news recommendations. Over time, the experience could become more relevant without requiring users to manually configure every preference.
Personalization created a better balance between breadth and focus. BBM could offer a large news service while reducing the burden of filtering it.
4. Let users share stories with contacts
News stories could be shared with BBM contacts.
This connected information consumption with BBM’s core social strength. Users could discuss stories directly with people they already knew rather than reading in isolation.
Sharing also helped distribute content through personal networks, increasing the reach and relevance of the feature.
5. Expand the feature across international markets
Suitmedia supported the launch of BBM News for users in countries including Canada, South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong, and Ireland.
This required a platform structure that could support different content sources and market needs while preserving a recognizable experience.
The international rollout demonstrated that the feature could scale beyond one local content environment.
Building group participation through BBM Group War
1. Turn a group chat into a shared game
BBM Group War was designed as an interactive quiz played within group chats.
Users could invite the Group War bot into a group and answer questions together. This built on a behavior BBM already supported—group communication—but added a structured shared activity.
The game gave groups a reason to interact beyond ordinary conversation. It helped turn a chat group into a place where members could compete and collaborate.
2. Use timed questions to create urgency
The bot sent questions at specific times, 12:30 AM and 6:30 PM, and players had 30 seconds to answer each question.
The time limit created energy and made participation feel immediate. Players had to pay attention and respond quickly rather than treating the game as an activity they could complete whenever convenient.
This helped create a recurring rhythm. Groups could anticipate the daily quiz and return together.
3. Make scoring visible and collective
Players earned points for correct answers, while the group’s total score determined its position relative to other groups.
This connected individual effort with group performance. A participant could help the entire group improve, creating a reason for members to encourage one another.
The ranking system also extended the game beyond one question. Groups had a reason to return and build their score over time.
4. Connect participation to rewards
After the game, the bot informed groups of their points and rank. Winners could claim rewards through individual messages, with prizes delivered through the DANA digital wallet.
This created a clear relationship between participation and benefit. The digital wallet integration also made the reward process more direct and helped connect entertainment with digital financial services.
5. Use the bot as both game host and service layer
The bot handled questions, scoring, ranking, notifications, and reward instructions.
This reduced the need for manual administration and made the game scalable across many groups. Participants received a consistent experience regardless of how many other groups were playing.
The bot’s role was central to the experience. It created a predictable rhythm and gave the game a recognizable host within the chat environment.
Building cloud infrastructure for scale and speed
1. Prepare for a large active user base
With more than 100 million monthly active users, BBM needed infrastructure capable of supporting significant traffic and data activity.
The addition of polls, news, personalized recommendations, and group games increased the demands on the platform. These services required data storage, content delivery, monitoring, identity management, and reliable backend processing.
Suitmedia used Amazon Web Services to support this broader ecosystem.
2. Use cloud services to reduce infrastructure burden
Cloud computing allowed BBM to access scalable and managed capabilities without maintaining every infrastructure component directly.
This helped the team support databases, storage, monitoring, streaming, content delivery, and other functions more efficiently.
The benefit was operational agility. BBM could add or adjust services without building a separate physical infrastructure layer for each one.
3. Use Amazon EC2 for flexible computing capacity
Amazon EC2 provided secure and resizable computing capacity for the platform.
This allowed the infrastructure to respond to changing demand. A campaign, poll, or group game could create traffic spikes that required additional resources.
Flexible computing helped protect performance during moments of high participation.
4. Use Amazon CloudFront to improve content delivery
Amazon CloudFront helped distribute static and dynamic web content more efficiently.
Faster content delivery was important for a platform where users expected news, poll screens, game prompts, and other interactions to load quickly.
Performance supported engagement directly. If content takes too long to appear, users may abandon a feature before participating.
5. Use Amazon S3 for scalable storage
Amazon S3 provided object storage for the platform’s data and content.
Scalable storage was necessary because BBM needed to manage content, media, user activity, and other data across a large audience.
Reliable storage also supported future expansion. As more features and content were added, the platform had room to grow.
6. Strengthen security and manageability
Cloud services also supported more structured management of access, data, and infrastructure.
This was important because BBM handled user identity, engagement data, content, and financial reward interactions through DANA.
A secure technical foundation helped protect the trust required for a communication and entertainment platform at scale.
Results showed that feature depth could coexist with usability
1. BBM created a clearer way to discover more services
The redesigned platform helped users explore content and services without feeling overwhelmed.
Strong hierarchy, clear menus, consistent content types, and restrained visual design made it easier to understand the growing BBM ecosystem.
The result was a richer platform that remained approachable. Users could stay focused on the feature they wanted while still discovering what else BBM offered.
2. BBM Polls made television more interactive
Polls allowed users to vote for television programs, artists, movies, singers, and other entertainment topics directly from the app.
The feature connected mobile participation with live broadcast outcomes, including SCTV Music Awards and Puteri Indonesia.
This gave BBM a distinctive role in the media experience. It was not only a messenger supporting conversation around television; it became a direct participation channel.
3. Polls created real-time social engagement
Users could see how audiences across the country were voting, comment on polls, and share them with friends.
This helped create a shared sense of participation. The audience could observe the wider response while contributing its own vote.
The feature also strengthened BBM’s social identity by connecting content interaction with relationships between users.
4. BBM News supported repeat use
The news feature brought local and international content into BBM Discover across multiple markets.
Personalized recommendations helped users receive stories aligned with their interests, while categories preserved broader exploration.
The combination created a more valuable reading experience. Users could receive relevant content without losing access to the wider news environment.
5. BBM expanded its global content reach
BBM News launched across markets including Canada, South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong, and Ireland.
This demonstrated that the content platform could support international growth with local relevance.
The rollout also strengthened BBM’s position as more than a messaging tool. It became a broader source of information and entertainment for users in different markets.
6. BBM Group War achieved rapid participation
Within three months, BBM Group War recorded 250,000 groups and 1.5 million players.
These figures showed that the group-based format created strong interest. Users were willing to invite the bot, participate in timed quizzes, and return to compete with other groups.
The scale also demonstrated that the game mechanics were accessible enough for broad adoption.
7. Group War strengthened interaction between friends and family
The game gave groups a shared activity that encouraged members to communicate, compete, and support one another.
This helped BBM deliver on the broader purpose of messaging: bringing people closer together.
The game did not replace conversation. It gave groups another reason to start and sustain it.
8. The DANA integration connected entertainment with digital finance
Rewards were delivered through the DANA digital wallet.
This made prize collection more direct and introduced participants to a digital financial service through a familiar group experience.
The integration also showed how a messenger platform could support connected services without forcing users into a separate, disconnected journey.
9. Cloud infrastructure supported continued expansion
AWS services helped BBM manage scale, content delivery, storage, computing, and data needs more efficiently.
The infrastructure allowed the platform to support more content and interactive features while maintaining speed and security.
This created operational flexibility for future services. BBM could continue expanding its ecosystem without rebuilding its technical foundation every time.
10. The platform strengthened BBM’s identity under Emtek
The combination of design modernization, interactive features, content personalization, and infrastructure improvement helped BBM present a broader identity.
The platform remained a messenger, but it also became a destination for news, entertainment, interaction, and group participation.
This supported Emtek’s objective of expanding BBM’s consumer base and creating more reasons for users to remain active.
11. User experience became a competitive advantage
In a crowded communication market, feature count alone is not enough. Users choose platforms that make communication and related activities easy, fast, and enjoyable.
BBM’s work showed that thoughtful design could help a feature-rich platform remain understandable.
The advantage came from making complexity feel manageable. Users received more value without being forced to process more confusion.
12. The platform created a foundation for future intelligence
Personalized news, chatbot-like group interaction, cloud services, and structured user data created the basis for future improvements.
BBM could continue using behavior and engagement signals to refine content, services, and recommendations.
The long-term value was not only in the features launched between 2016 and 2017. It was in the stronger digital foundation created for future product development.
The deeper lesson: feature expansion succeeds when complexity stays invisible
1. More features require stronger hierarchy
As platforms expand, the answer is not always to remove features. Often, the better solution is to organize them more clearly.
Menus, categories, icons, content types, and calls to action help users understand the platform without needing to learn its entire structure.
2. Design systems create trust at scale
Consistent patterns help users know what to expect. When the same visual and interaction logic appears across polls, news, games, and services, the platform feels more coherent.
Consistency becomes especially important when millions of people use the same system across different markets.
3. Personalization should reduce choice overload
A large content library is useful only when users can find what matters to them.
Recommendations and categories reduce the work of filtering information. Personalization is valuable when it makes the platform feel more relevant, not when it hides the wider range of choices.
4. Cross-media participation can create stronger engagement
BBM Polls showed that a messaging app can become part of a television experience by giving audiences a direct way to vote and respond.
The broader lesson is that digital platforms can add participation to passive media. They create stronger engagement when the audience can influence or contribute to the outcome.
5. Group games should strengthen relationships
BBM Group War worked because it was built into an existing social environment. The game gave friends and family a shared reason to interact.
The value was not only the score or reward. It was the conversation and connection created around the activity.
6. Technical architecture should support creative ambition
Interactive features require dependable infrastructure. Polls, personalized news, group games, and digital rewards can create unpredictable demand and complex data needs.
Cloud architecture allowed BBM to support these experiences with greater flexibility. Technical decisions made creative ideas more viable at scale.
7. Personalization and privacy must grow together
A personalized news feed depends on understanding user behavior. At the same time, a platform must protect user trust through responsible data management and clear access controls.
The more valuable the personalization becomes, the more important it is to manage data carefully.
8. Messaging platforms can become ecosystems without losing their core
BBM expanded into content, games, polls, and services while retaining messaging as its central identity.
The lesson is to build outward from the platform’s existing strength. New features should add reasons to remain in the ecosystem rather than distract from why users came in the first place.
Strategic Insights for the C-Suite
- Manage feature growth through hierarchy, not endless simplification. A platform can offer many services when navigation, content classification, and visual language make complexity easy to understand.
- Use personalization to reduce user effort. Recommendations, categories, and behavioral signals should help people find relevant content faster. More data should create a simpler experience, not a more crowded one.
- Turn passive media into active participation. Polls, votes, and live interactions give audiences influence and create stronger engagement than viewing alone. Digital products can add value by making participation immediate.
- Build social features around existing relationships. Group games and shared activities are more powerful when they enhance conversations between friends and family. The strongest engagement often grows from connections users already have.
- Match infrastructure investment to product ambition. Interactive features, personalization, and rewards require scalable computing, storage, delivery, and security. Technical foundations should be designed before growth makes them urgent.
