Sheila Buckley, who leads digital ad sales for The Weather Channel, brings up an interesting question-who's responsible for selling tablet inventory within organizations? She says its creating turf battles within media companies as print, digital and TV sales departments lay claim to tablet advertising. And that's leading to some confusion on the buy side. "We're finding lots of ad agencies are grappling with 'where do I buy this'?" said Buckley. At The Weather Channel, sales people are being trained in selling media across different platforms to help avoid fighting over who "owns" tablets.

Panelists on the OMMA Tablet panel talked about the value of apps as branding opportunities. One issue: how many people are using a marketer's apps and how long and how often they come back depends on content, whether it is news, sports, entertainment or anything else that people want to see or interact with. In packaged goods, the challenge is big. Why would people return to a Colgate app week in and week? There are hundreds of thousands of apps that people aren't going to use. If you are a CMO and spending a million dollars to market …

A panel of publishers convened before the lunch break at Tablet Revolutions attested to the high interaction rates associated with tablets. For Flixter, the movie site's iPad app is generating 7 to 9 trailer views per session compared to 2 to 3 on smartphones, according to chief revenue officer James Smith. Using are spending more time on the app per session on the iPad than phones or the Web. Christine Cook, who leads ad sales for The Daily, News Corp.'s iPad-specific newspaper said consumption of  video and long-form content has been higher than expected. The Weather Channel Interactive's Sheila …

Sheila Buckley, senior vice president-digital advertising sales at Weather Channel Interactive, says her company has been having "tremendous success" with its iPad platform, noting that about a year after its launch, The Weather Channel has just under 4 million iPad users. Still, she says, "Where is the money? Where is the advertising money. That's been interesting to see how that is evolving." I think Buckley was using the word "interesting" in the way some sales executives might use the word "frustrating," because despite the huge consumer uptake, Madison Avenue just hasn't …

When it comes to how people respond to advertising in iPad apps, "neuromatic" testing by Universal McCann found most ads are doing a good job of engaging both the cognitive and emotional sides of people's minds. Among ad features liked best were the ability to play a video, tap to view, photos, and 360-degree product views. One thing users didn't like was music in an ad auto-playing, leading people to try to shut it off as quickly as possible. "If advertisers think people can play music to get people's attention, that's a huge turnoff," said UM's Haggerty. In terms of …

This year will be the year that women truly embrace tablets, according to Michael Haggerty, SVP and Director of Research and Marketing Accountability at UM. What's attracting women to tablets? Unlike men -- who are obsessed with a tablet’s “cool” factor -- women like tablets’ portability, UM found. They’re hoping to jettison all their heavy magazines for one, light tablet, which they can easily carry in their “pocketbook,” Haggerty said. More broadly, UM found that tablets are family gathering tools -- as apposed to mobile phones, which people feel are personal devices -- which appeals to female consumers. For some …

So what are people actually doing with tablets, besides as child pacifiers? Michael Haggerty, SVP, Director of Research and Marketing Accountability, UM, was on hand to share research findings from the agency this year. Here's a few usage data points: Reasons for buying—women want portability; men want the latest gadget Over 50% said several times a day 2 out of 3 share with 2 or more people 63% Almost half are downloading free apps Tablet owners download an avg of 18 apps Men are 40% more likety to buy apps 65% of those …

Remember the scene in Woody Allen's classic "Sleeper" in which he wakes up in the oh-so-distant-future and winds up in a cocktail party where attendees pass around the "orb," a devices that gives drug-like pleasure to all the people touching it? That's what tablet computers, or least iPads, are like today, according to The Hyperfactor Chief Derek Handley. Speaking on a panel at OMMA Tablet Revolution, Handley was trying to explain the power of tablets to a real skeptic - me - and used the example of people who were gathered at a cocktail party who had to touch …

Considering the vast majority of video consumption, for instance, still takes place on TV, how much should marketers actually put behind tablet campaigns or other projects? For the most part, the panelists agreed spending is mostly still at the experimental level. For Coldwell Banker, the appeal of tablets is not only as a new ad platform but a new way for people to handle real estate transactions. He points to the prospect of an app that could take users through the home buying process from initial search to closing a deal. MediaCom's Sloan Broderick also suggests the tablet has value …

For a newer generation, touch is interaction, says Rachel Pasqua, VP of Mobile at iCrossing, and mother of a few touch-happy kids. (Not just a kid issue, however, by a show of hands, just under 50% of OMMA conference attendees have attempted to touch a non-touch-friendly screen.) Touch, however, doesn't represent a tablet's real value, according to Derek Handley, co-founder and CEO of The Hyperfactory. Neither does it have anything to do with a "cool" or "novelty" factor. Rather, it's all about sharing, says Handley. "It feels like a shared device," he said. It's o mistake, he adds, that tablets …