Anything you can do on your Facebook web page you will shortly be able to do instead on your BlackBerry, thanks to a new Facebook app being released by RIM, the makers of BlackBerries. RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis made the announcement yesterday at the CTIA conference in San Francisco. For example you can now invite people to join Facebook and accept new friend requests on the spot.

Officially called "Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones” it is to be a free application, said Lazaridis. Since Facebook is now valued at $15BN and the market cap of RIMnow exceeds even that of the Royal Bank of Canada, this is certainly a marriage made in Mammon.

The application leverages the push-based BlackBerry system architecture and Facebook Platform to create what Facebook calls "an unparalleled mobile experience for Facebook users."

In turn Facebook announced "Facebook Platform for Mobile" - enabling any of Facebook’s 80,000 developers to extend their applications to work with mobile phones.

Facebook users may opt-in to sending and receiving text messages from applications, or interact with applications on Facebook’s mobile site in a similar manner as they have already done on Facebook.

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