LinkedIn Debuts SlideShare App, Mobile Updates

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LinkedIn unveiled an Android app and new mobile features for SlideShare, the presentation platform that it acquired in 2012 for $119 million. SlideShare lets users upload Keynote, OpenDocument, PDF, or PowerPoint files to share publicly or privately.

In addition to its new mobile app, LinkedIn redesigned SlideShare's mobile web experience and mobile preview feature for desktop uploads. These updates are the latest in LinkedIn's mobile push. Last fall, the company redesigned its iPad and Pulse apps. Most recently, LinkedIn gave select Android users access to LinkedIn data from their email, calendar, and contacts applications.

According to SlideShare, mobile views on the site increased 223%. Currently 40% of LinkedIn's traffic comes from mobile, and the company expects that number to reach 50% this year.

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"Combined, these products make it easier to access, view, and share your presentations on the go, but they also help you with what SlideShare does best: Discover content through people and people through content," LinkedIn product manager Andri Kristinsson said in a blog post.

SlideShare's Android app is similar to LinkedIn's Pulse app in that it focuses on content discovery. You can't use the app to create or upload presentations or files; rather, the app is designed to follow topics, view presentations, save content for offline access, and share content with others.

Video: SlideShare Android App from SlideShare

The content it serves you includes presentations uploaded by your LinkedIn and Facebook connections (as long as you log in via LinkedIn or Facebook), trending presentations in your network, the most recent presentations on topics of your choice, and daily editor's picks. You can browse through the content by swiping through a presentation deck without leaving the main feed. To view content in full-screen mode, just tap.

For now, SlideShare's app is available only for Android.

In addition to its new mobile app, LinkedIn updated SlideShare's mobile web version with new swiping gestures and a navigation update that let you jump to slides within a presentation using a preview bar that displays the deck's individual slides.

SlideShare also updated its mobile sharing capabilities. Android users can send presentations to others via SMS text; iOS users can do the same via WhatsApp.

SlideShare's last update gives users more insight into how their presentations will display on mobile devices. "Most presentations are still made with desktop software, which gives little attention to how decks will look on mobile devices," Kristinsson said. "We want to help our uploaders create content that is mobile-friendly, and can be read easily from any device."

SlideShare's new Mobile Preview feature will show you how your presentation will display on mobile phones and tablets. SlideShare will automatically show you this preview when you upload something new.

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