Research In Motion (RIM) has followed the launch of the first consumer-focused ‘flip-phone’ BlackBerry this week with a raft of new partnerships in the consumer space. Firstly, RIM has partnered with the MySpace social network to develop an integrated ‘MySpace Mobile’ application customised for BlackBerry smartphones, which includes a community page on MySpace that allows users to access BlackBerry content such as videos, games and ringtones. RIM cites research from eMarketer that forecasts that over 800 million people worldwide will access social networks via mobile phones by 2012, up from 82 million in 2007. RIM forged a similar partnership with the Facebook social network last year.

RIM has also announced partnerships with Microsoft to integrate Microsoft’s Live Search capabilities into the BlackBerry Browser and BlackBerry Maps applications; a television scheduling application with TiVo; a mobile ticketing payment partnership with TicketMaster; and a personal radio application with Slacker.