Research In Motion (RIM) has introduced a new feature ‘BlackBerry Tag’ that the company claims allows users to share contact information, documents, URLs, photos and other multimedia content by tapping their BlackBerry smartphones together.

Leveraging near field communications (NFC) technology, the new feature will also enable friends to instantly add one another as contacts on BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), and share multimedia content.

The BlackBerry Tag will be initially supported by the recently launched BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 and BlackBerry Curve 9350/9360/9370 smartphones.

RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said BlackBerry Tag is an exciting and innovative feature that makes sharing contact information and multimedia content effortless and seamless.

"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," Balsillie said.

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.