Research In Motion (RIM) Co-CEO Jim Balsillie unveiled a new way for BlackBerry smartphone users to connect with one another and share multimedia content during his keynote presentation at the GITEX conference in Dubai.

BlackBerry Tag, which will be incorporated in the next BlackBerry 7 OS update (and subject to network operator certifications) , will allow users to share contact information, documents, URLs, photos and other multimedia content by simply tapping their BlackBerry smartphones together. BlackBerry Tag will also enable friends to instantly add one another as contacts on BBM (BlackBerry Messenger).

BlackBerry Tag takes advantage of Near Field Communications (NFC) technology included in the recently launched BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 and BlackBerry Curve™ 9350/9360/9370 smartphones, and these are the first BlackBerry smartphones that will support BlackBerry Tag.

RIM also announced plans to expose BlackBerry Tag through APIs on the BlackBerry platform, allowing software developers to take advantage of ‘tap to share’ functionality from within their own applications.

 Jim Balsillie (Co-CEO, Research In Motion): “BlackBerry Tag opens a new dimension to the BlackBerry platform that is powerful, simple and intuitive and we think it will be welcomed by both users and developers.”