Global Smartphone Mania: Smartphones are the Future of Social Networking

The world as we know today is becoming more portable or in more specific terms, more mobile. A decade ago, the smartphone was a thing of future. Everyone used to see PDA’s from Sony Ericsson and Motorola as phones from the future because they revolutionised the mobile phone segment by introducing pressure-sensing touchscreens. Today, we love smartphones, we love chatting, we love sending messages and we love being connected and cannot live without it: All of those things are brought together in the idea of a tiny device that has replaced the need of physical objects including camera, calculators, navigation units/maps, alarm clock, camcorder, calendar, flashlight, newspaper, radio etc. You might be surprised to see that this list can go longer and longer. However, what exactly brought about the on-going mad rush in the smartphone market is still an unanswered question. Many people believe that it is due to advent of the iPhone from Apple whereas others believe that it is because of the Android OS from Google that really injected a new lease of life into the smartphone market. Smartphones have become cheaper and they will become more affordable in the near future. They have changed the way people see portable information as well as the internet. According to comScore, three out of five US smartphone owners with ages 13 and older access social networking or blog sites. The ssage of social media platforms are on the increase thanks to the growth of smartphones and today the phrase ‘mobile social media management’ is not a new thing as it is already one of the key buzz words in the smartphone world. The smartphone is more practical and convenient for social networking than PC. The small keypad on the smartphone makes texting easy on Facebook when in for i.e. an outdoors environment especially for users. A new study by Flurry  reveals that today people spend more time on social networking websites via their smartphones as compared to gaming which was seen as the most engaging of hobbies people used to accustom themselves with via their smartphones. When compared with the same time period in 2011, the current usage has jumped by over 60%, which is encouraging for social media platforms as they can now focus on providing more mobile-friendly content and applications which are in fact great marketing and promotion opportunities.  Mobile apps have changed the way we see the internet. Today it is all about one-touch solutions and whatever service you may require in terms of software is readily available either online or offline. Both the categories together make up for the smartphone application market which is expanding by big leaps every year. Enterprises are finding huge marketing potential in smartphone applications as these apps can convey business deals, offers, services more accurately to potential customers. Location based marketing and sales is possible because of the high levels of portability smartphones offer as compared to other marketing channels. A recent World Bank and InfoDev study puts some amazing facts about smartphone usages. According to the report, nearly 75% of the global population has access to some form of mobile telephonic communication and a good majority of this total percentage use smartphones, which increases their value immensely. Over 30 Billion mobile app downloads took place in 2011 in the combined OS category consisting of iOS, Android and Windows which are the prominent operating platforms at present globally. However there are proprietary Java based and other platform based OS available for smartphones but these 3 are the areas where all the fun and excitement always happen. The prominence of smartphones in social media is evident from Facebook’s recent acquisition of Instagram for nearly $1 Billion. Facebook values the importance of smartphones and the impact a smartphone application like Instagram can have on its overall brand image. Applications streamline information workflow throughout mobile social media and hence facilitate easy access and modification of social media content in different social feeds such as social networks, blogs and micro blogs, online social forums and so on. The rise in smartphone popularity has definitely changed the way we describe the terms ‘internet’ and ‘globalization’. Cheaper tariff and higher comfort coupled with strong interfaces is what makes smartphones as the device of the future.

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Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.   About the Guest Author: Mandira Srivastava is a fulltime freelance writer who specializes in technology, health and fitness, politics, and financial writing. Equipped with degree of mass communication and having worked for both private and corporate clients, I have experience meeting a wide range of writing requirements and styles.