That's what Deborah Schultz of Altimeter Group cautioned OMMA attendees, emphasizing that thinking of social media as a marketing platform -- in and of itself -- is a big "mistake." "It think this is a huge mistake," she said. "It is a major shift. It may have an advertising component in it, but it is not just a marketing channel."

Deborah Schultz, Partner, Innovation Practice, Altimeter Group, at OMMA Global New York says don't think of social media as a marketing channel. This is much bigger, and we're only at the beginning. This may have an advertising piece to it, but it is not an advertising media. It is the grease that skids the Internet and our lives.

Iteration, and reinvention are a big, ongoing theme at OMMA Global this morning. It was cited by News Corp. digital czar Jonathan Miller, and it was echoed later by Digitas' Jordan Bitterman. "This thing needs to coninually be reinvented," Bitterman said, cautioning OMMA attendees that they would likely hear more, equally vague comments throughout the day. "It's vague because there is no set rule yet," he said, adding that it will take considerable time and resources for the industry to create standarized advertising systems for social media.

Greg McCastle, svp for advertising and publishing at AT&T, echoed Jonathan Miller's comments from prior panel about adding value if companies are expecting to consumers to pay for social media services. But AT&T and the other major wirless carriers already have an advantage over their online counterparts b/c people already expect to pay for everything in mobile--extra fees for data services like video or music and 20 cents a pop for text messages. The carriers want to maintain those fee-based services while adding advertising so they have the dual-revenue of of the cable companies. But before they think about …

Hey, all you mad men and women, Dennis Miller feels your pain. “It’s a really hard time to be in the ad agency business,” says the General Partner at Spark Capital (an investor in Twitter, by the way.) Because everyone’s and everything’s so new, “There’s no institutional knowledge,” he says, and there’s “so much pressure for everyone to be in these new worlds.” “This advertising and media business is so screwed up right now,” added Spark’s Miller. “There’s so much paranoia … It’s better to be in arbitrage now.” On a perhaps brighter note, says Miller, “We’re …

Spark Capital's Dennis Miller says this is a good time be an investor because "we think this media and advertising business is so screwed up right now." In other words, it's a good time to capitalize on all the confusion in the industry with the upheaval caused by the shift to digital media. Spoken like a true capitalist. "We're very bullish that money will follow eyeballs and human beings and we're just in the first inning right now," he says. Isn't that what people also said during the dot-com boom? If that's all it takes to be a VC, I …

That's the way Unilever's Rob Master described the current state of art of social media planning. Asked by OMMA Global panel moderator and Media Link chief Michael Kassan how big marketers are planning social media, Master said it is "woven" into the entire marketing process, and is no longer a standalone tactic. "Social is woven into the fiber of the media plan," concurred Digitas' Jordan Bitterman.

Jon Miller on How a Paid Model Would Work Jon Miller, chief digital officer of News Corp. has been possibly the only guy from a major broadcast company who has said that at some point a paid model would come to Hulu for some services. But I’ve always wondered how that would work. Consumers have the expectation now that what they see on Hulu (and other services) should be free because those services currently are. How would you coax those same consumers to learn to pay? Or would they balk? Miller says that to him, “This is really …

Rob Master, North American Media Director, Unilever, "Scale we got with the 30-second spot no longer exists. Social media is less about a channel and more about the fabric of our campaigns." How to avoid the trap of imposint yourself in social media content? "We have not found a simple answer for that. We process media, PR, consumer services, 800 numbers, host of people. Not an easy channel. But everyone realizes importance of it. We're working cross-functionally internally and with our agency as well."

What does New Corp.’s Miller think about his boss’s position on ad supported content -- namely that Murdoch wants it dead. There is a place for free content online, he says, explaining: “This is really an exercise in market segmentation.” How do you charge for content that was once free? “You have to provide additional value,” says Miller. “I think people are accepting that there are premium experiences online.” Dual revenue businesses are “good businesses,” says Miller, while those that put all their eggs in one basket don’t do that well. “We’re moving down that path.”