You're probably too busy to watch all the stuff going on in the social media space.  So am I really, but there are a number of people who help me keep up with announcements.

But these are particularly interesting times, since the majority of new products/services introduced have a definite business focus.

The most recent to land on my desk is Gist.  It's a typical triumph of West Coast marketing with the first public mention about the company winning a large amount of VC funding, coincidentally mentioning all the great things the software was going to achieve.  ( If I remember rightly this included World Peace, and the end of Global Warming, but maybe that's just the impression I got.)

The big hook of course was "Apply to join our Beta program, and get in front of your competitors.  We'll let you know when you can have an account."

Ever the junkie yours truly signed up.

After a few weeks we got told we could use the software, so today I jumped in and tried to play.

The attempt didn't last too long, because it didn't grab me, but we'll get back to it for more of a run later.

At first click the software looks nice, most of the set up is automated, and everything seems to do what it says.

But it gets awfully complicated very quickly (which is why I need to go back to it).

Gist seems enormously powerful in scanning just about every data source including our own email, Twitter posts etc. and anything published in social space.  It brings all this together and presents it in the context of both people and companies.

The question rolling around my brain right now is "so what?"  The vast majority of people, and especially corporate execs, aren't spending much time with Twitter or even blogging.  Their bosses won't let them.

I'm sure the point will become clear, eventually, but any business context is escaping me at the moment.

If you've figured it out please share your thoughts with us here.