BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has announced that it will be joining the streaming music market with BBM Music that will be integrated with BlackBerry Messenger.

This will allow users to connect and share music with their BBM contacts. A BBM Music user will have to pay about $5 a month to build a music profile of 50 songs. About half of those songs can be switched out with new songs each month.

Users will also be able to listen to songs from their BBM Music friends list. RIM says it best: More friends = more music.

BBM Music lets you discover the tunes your friends are listening to ? and lets them enjoy your songs, too, the company said on its Web site.

The Los Angeles Times reported that RIM is going to be linking to the Amazon MP3 store for song purchases. The songs on a user's playlist can be downloaded to a BlackBerry's storage memory for offline listening, or songs can be streamed over wireless networks.

RIM spokesman Douglas Soltys noted in a blog post that he thinks BBM Music could become the 'mixtape' for a new generation of mobile music users.

In the meantime, RIM has also announced three new versions of its entry-level BlackBerry Curve smartphone that will run on the new BlackBerry OS 7 operating system.

About BBM Music

BBM Music has been designed to allow you to:

- Build your music profile from a Catalog of millions of tracks (with more to be added over the coming weeks)

- Invite friends to BBM Music from your BBM contacts and gain access to their music and share your music (once they subscribe or join the free trial)

- Create playlists from your BBM Music songs plus your friends' songs

- Share playlists or single songs with BBM Music friends

- Follow your friends' BBM Music activity via timelines and comments, or start up a BBM chat about your favorite bands

- Cache music for easy offline listening

- Seamless integration with other BlackBerry music services

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