The acquisition of Gist is the gist of the latest rumors swirling around Research in Motion.
Makers of the hugely popular BlackBerry are said to be interested in the social media titan, which, according to a description from GigaOM, “creates profiles of people in your business network by using publicly available information” from social media and networking sources.
Why would RIM be interested in Gist? Because Gist is a leading professional contact aggregator. That is, Gist can take all of your professional contacts (from all of your social media websites, address books, email accounts, etc.) and reconcile those very contacts with everything from Facebook status updates and Twitter feeds to help users keep tabs on their contacts – what they’re doing, where they’re going, and what they’re saying.
“For RIM, the idea behind acquiring Gist would be to possibly re-invent the phone address book and make it integral to its core offering,” the report from GigaOM asserts.
This week, RIM reported a 45% surge in profits for its third fiscal quarter, according to Market Watch, a situation that firmly placed the company “ahead of analysts’ projections” for the period.
By expanding the BlackBerry’s reach into social media while cultivating its corporate image, RIM – say Wall Street analysts – will be in a strong position to continue outpacing earnings projections throughout 2011.
