With all the rapid advances in "visual storytelling" -- and all the new apps and platforms emerging to enable individuals to tell stories with all the sight, sound and motion we've all come to love (ie. Vine, etc.), is the still image going the way of the Polaroid? Nope, Alan Edgett, co-founder of GetPerception said during the "Future of Instagram" debate at the Social Media Insider Summit this morning. "Still images are not going away," he asserted. To which Summit chair and debate moderator Cathy Taylor quipped, "They are on Snapchat."

Squaring off in the Great Instagram Debate are Alan Edgett, co-founder of GetPerception and Nathaniel Perez, global head of social experience, SapientNitro, Alan argues Instagram is the best channel of all.  He says the photo-sharing service is great for amplifying brands because a picture tells a thousand words. Its also good for extending brands, e.g., people posting their runs on Instagram via the NikeFuel band, and building brand relationships via social conversations on the platform. Perez isn’t quite as enamored of Instagram. He raises a series of questions about whether it has legs in the face of a stream …

Speaking on the "staffing up" panel at the Social Media Insider Summit this morning, Geoff Shenk, Chief Revenue Officer of Ampush, recalled a couple of staff recruiting horror stories, including one in which a candidate confessed that her husband had threatened to killer her and anyone who speaks to her. "Interview over," Shenk told her, advising her to call the police, and telling her he would as well. His second recruiting anecdote wasn't as horrifying, but it was pretty horrible. It was while he was an executive at Kenshoo, and one prospect came in for an interview, but "used the …

“Paid, owned and earned” has become the mantra when it comes to social media marketing, but not everyone is buying in. Toni Jones, social media manager, U-Haul International, said the company does owned and earned but not paid in social. Why not? She explained that trying get a budget for social media spending would be about as successful as trying to do oral surgery on herself. There’s an image.

David Guy, CEO of Louddoor, and breakfast sponsor starting off Day Two of the Social Media Insider Summit on Captiva Island, is making a pitch, but he's also raising an important issue, which is that there's way too much "focus on phantom metrics." You know, "fans," "likes," and the like. Specifically, he's talking about the obsession among brands, agencies and social media consultants who are consumed with scaling those numbers without quite understanding what they mean in terms of the value for a brand. In fact, Guy said the "genius of Facebook" was to dub consumers "fans," because it is …

Jennifer Winberg, global social strategist, Momentum Worldwide, is kicking off Day Two of the Social Media Insider Summit on a metaphysical note. That's appropriate, because her keynote is about the "meta audience." Somehow, I don't think she's talking about metaconsciousness, per se, but if you read on, you may expand your own, consciousness. "This is very philosophical," Winberg began, encouraging the Summit attendees to be part of the Socratic debate, which is fundamentally around the notion that human beings have changed the way they humanize, and that we no longer communicate the way humans evolved over millions of years -- …

Don't create content for the platform. Create it for the audience. Move beyond the "Like." Marketers are still trying to figure out how to reach the friends of brand-fan followers. Jennifer Winberg, global social strategist at Momentum Worldwide, delivers the day 2 keynote at the Social Insider Summit, talking about the "connected protagonist," anyone who has "embraced technology." Technology is sixth sense and each person sees themselves in their own epic narrative, she said. The internal dialog, or stream of consciousness, becomes public. Winberg provides interesting insights, reminding us that on each social network one person can reveal different aspects …

"Future of Social TV" panelist Jason Hoch, senior vice president-customer strategy and product marketing Echo, more or less trashed moderator Joan Fitzgerald's theory that smart TVs are going to be the next big thing. "I don't thing they are," Hoch said, adding, "I think it is analogous to trying to run a Web browser in your car. The minute you do it, it looks three years old." Fellow panelist, John Mitchell, senior vice president-digital strategy at CSE, more or less concurred, noting, Right now, you're watching TV and you've got your laptop, your tablet your smartphone. The last thing I …

A big development all sides of the media industry should be thinking about, comScore Vice President-Television and Product Marketing Joan Fitzgerald said this morning during a presentation at the Social Media Insider Summit, is just how smart TVs are getting. In fact, she said a new technology dubbed "automatic content recognition," or ACR is being introduced that will enable TVs to know what content their viewers are watching. The implications of that are huge and multi-variant, and while I'm not 100% sure why she brought it up to introduce her presentation on the "Future of Social TV," and think of …

How many social marketing vendors does a brand need? Sitting on a panel at the Social Media Summit on using paid, owned and earned media. Erin Hoskins, senior, audience development/new media marketing & services, Meredith, said the company is already “rooted in data,” with 800 data points collected about each of its users. So it already uses a lot of tech vendors. She noted the publishing giant has added in social data to its analytics tracking in recent months in order to tied that information back to revenue. That means being able to turn a combination of paid and earned …