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eBay speaks out against the latest Internet sales tax proposal, BlackBerry Messenger adds a music service, and Amazon sweetens the Kindle with free book-borrowing for Prime subscribers.

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

One of iOS 5's most anticipated features is iMessage, an Apple instant-messaging service that can be used only among iOS devices. This is essentially Apple's answer to BlackBerry Messenger, RIM's own internal messaging system. The idea behind both messaging services is that they don't cost anything extra and won't deduct from your text messaging plan.

The catch, of course, is that both exist only in either the iOS or the BlackBerry ecosystem. Here, we take the opportunity to compare both messaging services. … Read more

Talk about bad timing for Research In Motion.

On the heels of another disappointing quarterly report, RIM is suffering from an outage that has hit its e-mail and BlackBerry Messenger services today. BlackBerry customers took to Twitter to voice their complaints. The company later acknowledged problems.

"Some Canada & LatAm customers report BBM issues. Our support teams are investigating. We apologize for any inconvenience," the company said in a tweet.

A RIM representative wasn't immediately available to provide further details on the extent of the problem to CNET.

The outage appears to be more widespread. The Huffington Post reported seeing tweets complaining about service in the U.K. and the Middle East. … Read more

In an unsurprising but still shocking move, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs resigns as CEO but remains with the company as chairman. Tim Cook is promoted from chief operating officer to chief executive officer.

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Research In Motion is hoping to bolster the popularity of its BlackBerry Messenger service with the launch of a music-sharing service as companies focus more attention on social networking.

The maker of BlackBerry smartphones announced late this evening the launch of BBM Music, a cloud-based service intended to allow users to create an ever-evolving library of music that can be shared with other BBM Music users. The service will offer millions of songs from the catalogs of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI. (CNET first reported that RIM was in talks with the major labels … Read more

BlackBerry to help police probe Messenger looting "role"' in U.K. riots; Chinese smugglers use epic zip-line to transport iPads and iPhones; and power companies prepare as solar storms set to hit Earth.

Facebook's new standalone Messenger app for iPhone and Android is designed to help you reach out to Facebook friends or people in your mobile contact list in what Facebook spokesperson Meredith Chin described as a "fast and easy way."

The app can be used to reach out to a single friend or a group of friends but you have to select each member of the group individually. It doesn't support the "group" or "list" functions in Facebook that make it possible to post messages to entire groups on the Facebook Web site. … Read more

It appears Research In Motion has decided to flip the switch and turn its popular BlackBerry Messenger application, or BBM, as its users refer to it, into a more full-fledged "social experience," complete with app integration, social app discovery, even some enhanced social gaming.

Buzzwords aside, BBM 6 does, in fact, change the game for both BlackBerry app developers and end users. It allows developers to create apps using the BBM API, which in turn will allow users to interact with each other from right within the BBM-connected apps. This means that newly developed games, for instance, could … Read more

If you've been waiting to dump your BlackBerry for an iPhone because you don't want to give up the free BlackBerry Messaging service that allows you to bypass carrier text messaging, then the wait is over.

Earlier this week, Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco that its new iMessage feature that will be baked into the latest version of iOS software due later this year, will offer a similar messaging service that Research In Motion's BBM service offers.

In addition to seeing when and if messages have been received, just like BBM, iMessage … Read more