Gist now is available as a Google Gadget , plugging its contact-enhancing knowledge base into the Gmail inbox. The company supports email is the center of the universe. It has integration with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and increasing support for GMail. We asked the company CEO, T.A. McCann what it was like working with Google in the apps marketplace and what it takes to bring social web into the daily flow of the enterprise consumer. Sponsor People Are Agile Too By supporting Gmail and the app marketplace, the company has stated that it is going to great lengths to make it easy to keep up with the world around us. Using a cloud services architecture, Gist acts as a productivity layer inside of an inbox to bring up-to-date-ness to information about a persons contacts. From what we see, this enhanced information offering shines in places like sales or marketing where keeping up with a number of outside contacts is valuable to the process of building bonds in business and being agile as a decision maker. Agile is Uncertainty – That is a Good Thing The blog entry above mentions collaboration with the Google team, we wanted to know what it was like so we took the opportunity to ask McCann about the experience participating as a first-mover in the Google Apps Marketplace. First thing we heard was “agile” mixed with a tone of respect. Lot’s of iterations, working hard until the end to get it right. This style of development implies lots of changes until the moment of launch and rigor on the end-experience. This mindset seems to require a lot of agility – and good humor – to be thrive and deliver the best solution possible. One nice thing, is that the power of cloud computing (e.g. change all users to new versions) is a very powerful tool in the development model for Google Apps and other cloud providers. Overall, our dialog with McMann further impressed us on how much Google is doing to reset the terms of enterprise software. The company, seemingly overnight (although it has been years) is becoming an enterprise company by stating from the ground-up. The opportunity offered by being available to administrators in this context is a new paradigm worth betting on. What is The Gist Gist aggregates information from the streams of the web (twitter, facebook, blogs, news, and more) and connects those streams with an individual user. With Gist enabled the user is promised an ability to get a quick snapshot of the information surrounding a contact in the inbox without having to go outside, in essence getting “the gist” of what is up with a contact in a quick (up-to-date) snapshot. McCann suggested we imagine it as taking the best of Google (e.g. search, real-time, maps, blogger) and re-factoring those streams to be easily viewable in the context of email account. The company has optimized its learning algorithms on higher-order bits, or finding the nuggets of information that are more than just a Twitter API call away to bring unique value to the inbox experience. GMail itself has already evolved the experience of email experience – with Gist enabled the experience of the inbox goes further into being the command center for business communications without needing to leave for the web for more information. Here, we see Gist toolbar (un-opened) and how it tags along the email to bring relevant streams of the sender of an email message to the receiver. To further illustrate how it works, here is a demonstration of the new product announced today. The major change agents of social web and cloud computing once again knock on the enterprises door through email. More context, less clicks. Is Gist on your companies Google Apps list? Discuss

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Gist Gadget for Google Apps: A Look at the Social Inbox

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