Actually, it is objects. Specifically, it's figuring out how to tie the social graph directly to the physical world of objects. That's what he and his partners at Stickybits are starting to do, and he explained their status during an opening keynote at the Social Media Insider Summit in Lake Tahoe this morning. After reiterating the rapid progression of online media – from Yahoo through Google and up through more recent social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter – Goldstein maintained that the next big development would be turning "objects into media." The initial applications being developed by …

The Social Media Insider Summit started off the way these summits usually begin: With a sponsored breakfast workshop. But you're definitely going to want to follow the thread on this one, literally. That's because it was being presented by Ryan Deutsch, the vice president of emerging media at ThreadMarketing. Deutsch more or less challenged the roomful of marketers and social media gurus to help him understand how they're utilizing social media in the customer retention, acquisition and overall relationship marketing. Deutsch divided the process into four pillars – listen, learn, engage and influence – and suggested that influence …

Asked about Facebook Places, Frank O'Brien, founder of marketing and design firm Coversation, said the new Facebook location service still had bugs to work out since the company rolled it out without having every detail nailed down to keep pace with established competitors like Foursquare and Gowalla. Speaking on an agency panel at the Mobile Summit, he pointed out, for example, that the technology to easily connect a brand's existing Facebook Page with a Place page isn't there yet. That said, he noted that "Facebook Places is where brands will play more than other applications." He sees rivals like …

Discussing how they adapted apps for the iPad, panelists on the Apps 2.0 panel at the Mobile Summit described how they took advantage of the larger screen with more video and more content in general. It also opened the door for advertisers to do more. "We allow advertisers to take over the entire screen and page through and do a variety of things," said Cheryl Lucanegro, SVP, Advertising, at Pandora. The Internet radio service gained attention for creating its own rich media ad format for the launch of its iPad app in June with advertisers including Budweiser, Starbucks and …

During a Mobile Summit session Saturday on the future of mobile apps, Howard Hunt, vice president of new business at the Hyperfactory, suggested the mobile Web is poised to eclipse apps on handheld devices. "I think the browser and mobile Internet is really going to be the key," he said, comparing mobile apps to widgets from the early days of the desktop Web that eventually gave way to the browser-based Web. Does that mean a lot of annoying banner ads are going to start crowding mobile screens?

Remember the dude who held up the sign at the Oscars with a texting DOLPHIN to 44144? A couple of the people behind that text campaign linked to the dolphin slaughter documentary "The Cove," which culminated in the surprise Oscar ad,were on hand at the Mobile Summit to talk about the effort and some of the takeaways that can apply to other text campaigns. Among them, were to keep the call-to-action simple. "Don't try to do 10 things on the first interaction," advised Matt Silk, senior vice president of Waterfall Mobile, who appeared with Stephanie Schipper, vp of technology at …

Location-based services like Foursquare and Loopt and the new shopping app shopkick have been fueled frenzied hype. But during a panel discussion on mobile commerce at MediaPost's mobile summit, Andrew Koven, who leads e-commerce for Steve Madden, wasn't overly bullish on these services. He said results from its partnerships with Foursquare and Loopt haven't been very compelling to date and didn't see much reason why Steven Madden would sign up with shopkick. The shoe retailer uses the services to provide mobile customers local store discounts. Regarding shopkick, one basic question he had was about how much adopting the shopkick …

Andrew Koven, president of e-commerce and customer experience at Steve Madden, led off the Mobile Summit's second day with a sneak peek of some of the m-commerce initiatives the shoe retailer plans to roll out in the next six months. What's in store? A centerpiece will be a Steve Madden Mobile Club the company will use to build loyalty  by sending exclusive offers to consumers directly their handsets. The company will also rely heavily on providing text-based offers and incentives rather instead of relying on barcodes, in part because standards for barcode technology haven't been established yet and texting …

The MMA's North American region head, advised Mobile Summit audience members that when it comes to global, think local. Every region, every country is different in how they handle marketing programs--in Turkey there's more red tape to cut through while the Phillipines, by contrast, is virtually wide open. "The marketing structures are totally different in every country," he said. "There is no one solution that works globally." So when in Rome...or India or China...

How does mobile marketing differ around the world? The fundamentals are the same globally, but what differs is that in many countries mobile isn't a nice thing to have, it's a necessity, explains Michael Becker, North American Managing Director for the MMA, in a presentation on mobile use globally. He points out that in Africa, mobile plays a key part in HIV treatment and other health-related areas. You can even use mobile to pre-pay insurance for your own funeral. Yikes. Mobile commerce company M-Pesa has gotten uptake from the unlikely market of  goatherders in Africa, who use its money …