Word on the street is that BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion, is in talks to acquire Seattle based Social CRM startup, Gist.  Although industry sources say the deal is almost done, Gist VP of marketing, Robert Pease, told Gigaom that the company had no comment on the story.

The idea behind acquiring Gist would be to possibly re-invent the phone address book and make it integral to its core offering. It would actually make a lot of sense for RIM to do this, as it plays to its core strength – namely, messaging. By making the address book more networked and more social, RIM can build a social inbox, much like the one being championed by Facebook.

[Via GigaOm]