Let's talk Timeline! -- Facebook's Timeline for Brands, which recently forced brands and agencies to change their approach to the Web's top social platform. It's been a "big shift" for brands, according Patrick Chen, Manager of Social Product Strategy and Marketing Operations at Clickable -- "from an ad strategy to a content strategy." Now, said Chen, brands have to ask themselves how they can generate engaging content, and think about ad strategy later. "Timeline did present a little bit of a challenge," admitted Jill Dodge, Managing Director of Global Marketing at NASDAQ OMX. The goal now is making sure content …

Matt Goddard, CEO of R21, just gave a nifty guideline for vetting the opinions of all those social gurus offering you advice about products, services and brands. If you're surfing social opinion sites, he said, sample sizes matter.

Interesting insight during the opening panel at OMMA Social this morning. It turns out that social media is actually a lot like your first "social," you know, your first dance. And what do socially awkward teenagers do when they show up at their first dance, they go up and talk to someone awkwardly about themselves -- at least until they get comfortable with the social dialogue, and can figure out how to talk to other people in that setting.

Social media is... "a core behavior," according to Matt Goddard, CEO of digital agency R2i. Specifically, it's a risk reduction tool, Goddard explained during a morning panel at OMMA Social. Therefore, marketers trying to reach consumers within social environments should ask: What is the decision-making behavior? What risk are users seeking to reduce? Taking a slightly different approach to social, Tim Fogarty, Senior Strategist at M80, says his "entire job" is telling brands to "matter more." (Isn't that why they hire agencies in the first place?) His point is simply that, in our increasingly consumer-controlled media world, brands that don't …

Matt Goddard, CEO of R2i, says social media isn't media at all. Heck, he says it's not even a marketing channel per se. What it is, he's telling OMMA Social attendees this morning, is a "behavior."

Sandra Lopez, Global Marketing Strategy Director for New Business, Intel, just gave me a new perspective on the way to utilize social media as part of marketing strategy: First-mover intelligence.

That's what Jeff Mirman, vice president-marketing of Turner Sports just said during his opening keynote at OMMA Social during Internet Week in New York this morning. Well, Mirman didn't actually say that, but he said that the reason why a TV network-based company like Turner Sports is so focused on digital, especially social media right now.

Social media is ... nothing on its own, according to Jeff Mirman, VP of Marketing at Turner Sports. The word he just used, during his opening keynote at OMMA Social, is "additive." Additive to what? That's for you to figure out, but basically your existing media strategy. Along with the reach you're achieving via TV, add a little social. Along with the depth you're providing with your Web site, throw in some social. "Don't treat it like anything different," Mirman warns. Simiarly, Forrester analyst Nate Elliott, recently told us: "People look at social as a problem, but they need to …

No Kool-Aid being served at OMMA Social, today. On the contrary, the punctuation mark of the day is a big fat "?" according to Catharine Taylor, MediaPost columnist and conference MC. Social marketing's success (!) ... ? Social-driven marking strategies (!) ... ? Big budgets going to social (!) ... ? Madison Ave. happy with social (!) ... ? ... You get the idea.

Just so we're clear, few think new commerce models (m-commerce, e-commerce, Z-commerce, etc.) are threatening physical commerce. "I don't think [traditional commerce] is dead by any means," Linda Gridley, President & CEO, Gridley & Company LLC, said on an afternoon panel at OMMA Mobile. That said, "Mobile is going to make [physical retail] a more thoughtful experience." Similarly, Jim Hilt, VP of eBooks at Barnes & Noble, said the idea that mobile (or another new channel) is going to kill the need for physical retail is way off. "People like to go in stores and shop," said Jeff Sellinger, Co-Founder …