Has the following scenario ever happened to you? You're sitting around a table with friends at a restaurant, friends you've been out of touch with for some time, with the plan of catching up on each others' lives…and they are all text messaging. The surprising part? They are text messaging with each other!

If you have had this experience, chances are your friends have Blackberries, and they are using the exciting Blackberry Messenger, sometimes referred to as BBM, technology.

What is Blackberry Messenger? Basically, it is enhanced real-time text communication between users of Blackberry PDA phones, and it includes things like multi-media sharing and lots of other neat enhancements. The technology functions as follows: instead of being SMS based like regular text messages, the messages are relayed through Blackberry's RIM servers, much like email, so it can take advantage of Blackberry's other famous proprietary system, push technology. This ensures that messages arrive at your phone at virtually the same instant they are sent by your friend.

But, the cool things about Messenger are far from only technical. You can make use of Blackberry Messenger Icons and other assorted smilies to make your points and express your emotions. You can get these either straight from Blackberry or from other services that provide them. You can snap photos and send them instantly to the others on your friends list, or you entire friends list actually. You can leave voice messages or other audio messages for your friends through messenger, or even use it as a standard text messenger for sending straight text messages that don't involve multimedia.

There is a reason why Blackberries have garnered the nickname "Crackberries" among the young generations of gadget geeks. They are an absolutely addictive way of keeping in touch with your friends and keeping track of all the parts of your life! And in addition to high-speed internet access, advanced calendar programming, text messaging, email push technology, crystal clear phone reception, and advanced contact organization capabilities, you have the incredibly cool and desirable function of being able to add other friends that have Blackberries to your Messenger friends list. You can invite them onto your Messenger friends list either via their Blackberry PIN number or email. Once they are added to your Blackberry friends list, you can now communicate with them instantaneously any time their phone happens to be turned on. Which, if you know anything about Blackberry users, is most all of the time.

So that's why it's definitely not unusual to see a whole table of friends out at a bar or a restaurant, all with their Blackberries out, and laughing and furiously text messaging - with each other!