I won't flip out! HA HA. Just to answer your question of the point,
I used to be a bb owner, and I could chat with my brother, wife, friends, etc who all had blackberry's, it cost me $0. My brother switched to an iphone, my wife and I got Android, and my friend is still on a bb with sprint. We are VZW.
For $10 a month on TOP of the data plan, i pay for texting. It is unlimited but only for VZW customers. To text my brother, or friend on sprint, I only get 500 texts a month. I have to pay an additional $10 for 5000 a month. VZW doesn't offer a real "unlimited" texting plan, only to it's own customers. My wife I never paid for texting since we had bbm. Now, I have to pay for a texting plan for her if I wanted to send her a text. Yes it is unlimited to her since she is vzw as well, but to spend the extra 10 is rediculous for something that "should" be free. Ping gives us that option back. Ping is available for blackberry, but it is not in the bb app world. you have to get it from ping's website. It isn't great compared to the iphone and android version, but it works.
Point is, it is just a way to save a lot of money. I actually can lower my plan. I have one friend I use to text all the time, and was really the reason for me jumping to the $10 unlimited/500 plan, instead of the $5 250 message plan. With them getting ping, I can drop down to the $5 plan again. That's $60 a year. Sounds like being cheap, but I pay over $200 a month for 4 cell phones. I pay enough. No reason to give away money.
Now, ping has had it's issues, most recently an update last week that for some reason made it not work. Another update came along quickly, but there were issues until all my friends had installed the update. I use google voice for the free texting, but it is a hassle to give 2 numbers to people (voice quality is definitly better on the vzw number) as I don't use the google voice number for phone calls. Google voice is a great option, especially since you can integrate the messages into handcent or into your message box, but you can't send pictures with it.
just my two cents. It is a way to get more than what your carrier offers for less money. I've been a loyal VZW customer because of the service, but I've always hated the way they nickel and dime you. My first cell phone had free texting because nobody used it it took so long to type. Now that phones are made for it they charge. I have no problem paying, but give me a break with the limits on messages.
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