Marketers seeking to sprint out of the recession need to become multichannel-friendly and completely consumer-focused, and get over themselves. The need to construct data-rich profiles of customers, personalize responses to their needs and smartly play in their social, mobile digital sandbox are themes that resonated in the opening-day keynote addresses and discussions at Forrester Research's annual Consumer Forum in Chicago Tuesday.

The publication of the new white paper by Peggy Anne Salz, highlights that in the personal world of mobile social networks, advertising that encourages two-way interaction between advertisers and consumers will be more successful than conventional "push" style banner ads. The report suggests that virtual gifting is seen by many as the starting point for cultivating this two-way conversation.

Twitter and Facebook ask users to answer the question: What are you doing right now? But for many urbanites in their 20s and 30s, two other questions are just as important: Where are you, and can I come join you?

For them, a fast-growing social networking service called Foursquare is becoming the tool of choice. A combination of friend-finder, city guide and competitive bar game, Foursquare lets users “check in” with a cellphone at a bar, restaurant or art gallery. That alerts their friends to their current location so they can drop by and say hello.

Vodafone has been showing off its Vodafone 360 social networking service and demonstrating it on its about-to-launch Samsung H1 handset. Vodafone 360 (360.com) is a means of keeping in touch with friends and colleagues and creating an ever-expanding circle of them.

Vodafone recently revealed their plans for a new type of Internet service and revolution for mobile social networking called “Vodafone 360″. Now the promised first mobile phone which supports it, the Samsung H1, is available on pre-order with shipping expected by the end of October. Vodafone 360 brings together Facebook, Windows Live and Google giving you a single place to get the status updates of your friends.

The INQ Mini 3G is quite the intriguing little phone. It has the dimensions and outward appearance of a standard issue featurephone, yet aims to provide the multifunctional utility of the bulkier QWERTY keyboard-sporting smartphones that now roam these lands. With deep integration of Facebook, Twitter and Skype, it's designed to be a do-it-all social networking device, so we thought we'd run a few status updates through it to see if the latest spin on an award-winning heritage lives up to its billing. Slide on past the break to find out.

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Micello is launching a new iPhone application that tackles one the last areas still not covered by established mapping applications — the insides of locations like shopping malls, college campuses, and convention centers. It also integrates social networking services into the application, which could prove useful if you’re, say, in a large convention center for a big event and want to see what other people are doing. Micello says it will bring maps of more than 150 locations online this fall.

Users of Android-based phones now have access to social-networking site GyPSii, which focuses on location-centric services.

Supporting the Google mobile OS is important because of its potential. Android is still a nascent platform, but it is poised to capture market share rapidly, according to GyPSii. Phones based on the operating system have become some of the hottest mobile devices on the market, GyPSii noted Tuesday.

Recently, LG and Motorola added Android smartphones to a list that includes phones from Samsung and HTC, which so far has been the Google OS's biggest supporter. Last year 195,000 Android phones were sold, and this year that number will increase to 3.4 million, according to market research company Gartner.

Wireless software maker Myriad bought mobile social networking firm Xumii on Tuesday, joining a growing number of firms seeking to tap the potentially lucrative sector.

Xumii enables access to social networking services from most phones, integrating phone contacts, social networks and instant messaging services into a single "social phonebook".

Earlier this week, Southeast Asia's biggest telecom operator Singapore Telecommunications said it would target young consumers keen on social networking with a new Twitter-phone from INQ Mobile.

Last week, the top cellphone maker Nokia said it had bought a small U.S. media sharing and messaging firm Plum Ventures, while social networking features play a key role in Motorola's attempted comeback.

Motorola has become the butt of many mobile phone industry jokes over the last few years. Not since the RAZR (now available in 18 different versions) has the company seen success with a handset. But at the launch event for the DEXT, something was different - journalists were heard saying that they haven't been this excited about a handset from Motorola in years.

So what's changed? The same thing that changed HTC and is currently changing Samsung - Android. Google's free mobile operating system is enlivening a whole raft of phone manufacturers that have always made great hardware but struggled with user interface design. But how does the DEXT stack up against the G1, Magic, Hero and Galaxy i7500? Read on to find out.

"I didn't really use Facebook that much until I got my iPhone." Sound familiar? That sentiment and variations of it has provided powerful anecdotal evidence over the past several months about the impact smartphones are having on the way people are using the mobile web to connect with others. Through the mobile phone, today's more mainstream users - those folks who don't count sitting behind a glowing screen among their favorite pastimes - have begun to interact on the mobile web, specifically the social web, in greater numbers than ever before.

A new report by Openwave provides more evidence of this trend. Their findings show that four of the top ten domains accessed via mobile devices are social networking sites. Facebook and MySpace, of course, featured prominently on that list.

Four of the top 10 web domains accessed via U.S. mobile devices are now social networking sites, according to mobile software applications and infrastructure provider Openwave Systems' latest 2009 Mobile Insights report. Openwave notes the results correspond with recent findings by the Internet Advertising Bureau, which reported that a 179 percent year-over-year increase in the number of mobile handsets accessing social media sites, compared to a 10 percent increase in PC visitors to the same sites. Openwave suggests that operators looking to capitalize on the trend should consider partnering with leading social networking sites through co-branding efforts, such as marketing and advertising, or to offer aggregation services enabling more efficient access to social networking sites via the carrier's own portal.