Social Media Phones Fueled by Open Source?

Earlier this month, I read about a study reporting that 93 percent of online Americans believe companies should have a presence among social media tools, with 85 percent of respondents saying companies should interact with consumers through social media.

As businesses figure out how to leverage social media tools online, it's probably not too early to start thinking about reaching customers on their mobile devices, too.

Though I hardly access Twitter or Facebook from my Blackberry at the moment, Silicon.com reported today that smartphones may outsell mobile phones in five years thanks to social media integration. According to John Ellis, director of carrier market development in Motorola's software ecosystem team, "Texting and voice of today are slowly evaporating and slowly diminishing in our rear view mirror as we move into social media, rich user experiences."

BusinessWeek ran the story as well, which points to open source as a key driver for the development of mobile social media. The Google Android phone will no doubt raise the bar. Funambol, provider of open source push email and mobile sync, is also seeing a surge of interest in open source mobile development. The company announced today that 1500 new developers have joined the company's registered open source developer community in the last month alone. Funambol is now sponsoring mobile developers who can integrate its portal with Google Docs and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace - the company's open source software runs on 1.5 billion mobile devices, including smartphones.

Even more futuristic for mobile enthusiasts is the Samsung concept wrist watch phone pictured above that will evaluate your vitals, such as blood pressure and heart rate.

As the mobile opportunity seizes opportunities to delve into new fields, we are sure to see more advertising, marketing and customer service on mobile phones – will social media become the key conduit?

From SlideShare to CNET - Popular Presentations Make News

Tired of sending around your presentation as a PDF email attachment? Check out SlideShare, a free online repository for PowerPoint presentations. It's a fast and easy way to share your presentations - chances are you'll get more eyes on it than you think.

For example, Funambol CEO, Fabrizio Capobianco, posted his keynote presentation from the World Computer Congress a week ago. Since then, the presentation has 409 views, 39 downloads, 3 embeds, 3 favorites and 1 comment. Even better, the slide deck caught the attention of CNET News open source blogger, Matt Asay, who wrote about Fabrizio's presentation yesterday.

This is what we PR types like to call "making our job easy." In the high tech startup space, you don't often get clients who make their own news. It's great when it happens.

OpenLogic, another Page One client, turned to SlideShare last month to post the results of its Open Source Census. That presentation got over 1300 views and was featured on SlideShare's homepage the same week.

The above numbers might not seem impressive, even after you consider the narrowed open source enthusiast audience both presentations target. In both cases, however, the presentations reached a greater audience than they would have otherwise. OpenLogic also saw some inbound leads and enthusiasm from the SlideShare community.

Using a social media tool like SlideShare not only immortalizes your content and brand in an easy-to-search-and-share environment, but also helps communicate key messages in a stripped down, no fluff way.

When I conduct research, I rely most heavily on the Internet to find any free information or data points I can use. SlideShare is great for providing this type of information - just search for "Forrester Research" or any top analyst firm and see what you find.

Especially if you're a small company exploring new marketing channels and avenues, I say go for it - you never know where you'll presentation will turn up or who will point right back at you.