ORLANDO, Fla. – BlackBerry (TSX:BB) says it will be able to make money off its BlackBerry Messenger service by opening it up to its rival’s smartphones.

One of the Waterloo, Ont.-based company’s top developers said Wednesday that while BBM will be available to users on Apple’s iPhone and Android operating systems for free, there are other ways to generate revenue.

“By opening it up to other platforms we’re really listening to what our users have asked for,” said Andrew Bocking, executive vice-president of software product management at BlackBerry.

“They want to be able to talk and communicate with their friends, family and colleagues … regardless of what mobile device they use.”

Where the profits will come from, Bocking said, is BBM Channels, a new platform that will serve as a marketing launchpad for businesses and celebrities. It will work like a combination of Facebook Pages and Twitter and allow BBM users to opt in and start to follow popular brands.

“What we are talking about is enabling and facilitating those brands and businesses to enable BBM users to follow them … and those types of interactions would be paid-for interactions,” he said.

One example that Bocking used was Starbucks, which could directly market to interested customers through the service with coupons or other campaigns.

Users could start following their favourite brands by scanning a BlackBerry “PIN” code on advertisements.

Other money-making plans are in the works, but too early to announce, he said.

The decision to launch a marketing side to BBM comes as advertisers look for new ways to grab eyeballs. Increasingly viewers record their TV shows on PVRs and skip the commercials and other traditional media has struggled to generate bigger advertising revenues.

Through direct marketing to phones, companies will be able to have a better idea who is seeing their offers and target their interested customers.

“Hyper-local mobile offers is really where we think the marketing and advertising business is going,” Bocking said.

But direct marketing has its setbacks as BBM could risk launching its new service and turning it into a glorified junk mail folder for people who like to sign up for special offers, but rarely use them.

BlackBerry will be careful to place a wall between a BBM user’s personal space and their other “brand communication” interests, Bocking said.

“We’re being very deliberate in how we allow those businesses and brands to interact with the BBM community,” he said.

He said BlackBerry doesn’t want BBM Channels to conflict with personal chats in BBM, which he says will “remain pure and uncluttered.”

BlackBerry has said it will launch BBM on other mobile platforms sometime this summer, though it hasn’t submitted its program for approval to either the iTunes or Google Play app stores yet.