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RIM disappoints again

Well RIM got trashed today in after hours, down 10 per cent based on lower earnings forecast.

Glad I sold the stock a while ago.

Can't imagine how badly it would have been hit if it didn't have things like tablets hitting the market, which shows that it's at least trying to stay competitive.

From a PR / marketing perspective I think RIM has lost its way.

Even when you go to their Web site, it's so dark and gloomy. Maybe I'm getting old and my eyes don't adjust the way they should, but using a black background and medium dark grey text for navigation just feels down right gloomy. I have to squint to read most of the text.

And while RIM has two central sites, www.rim.com and www.blackberry.com, one for corporate and one for product, only the product site has social media options (which are displayed as the tiniest icons possible in the bottom right corner).

They've obviously tried to sex themselves up (the old site was very boring) but fuzzy images, dark motifs and general clutter give the signal that from a marketing and PR perspective the helicopter is in a tailspin. Not to mention the disconnect in the sites... the RIM corporate site, even in their news section, has no social networking options (and I'd argue it's more important to have them there, than anywhere else).

What did give me a laugh though is how on their product site's homepage (top left corner) there are social networking share options, including Twitter. Why in the world would I want to tweet the url of blackberry's homepage?

Anyway, take a look at Apple's homepage and RIM's and tell me there isn't a galaxy of difference between the two. I like RIM more than Apple, but if I were 20-something and looking at devices by visiting different sites, I'd run away from RIM and run right to Apple.

I just hope RIM gets its marketing act together and hope that it's not too late for that to happen.  I feel bad for the PR folks also because I'll tell you this much, I'd rather be pitching reporters and sending them to a site that looks like Apple's than sending them to the RIM site (where they will get a migraine trying to navigate looking for information).

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