How many ad networks on one media plan are too many? If you are running a performance-based campaign, the answer may be two. Does that sound crazy? After all, it's pretty common today to see online media plans that have six, seven, 10 or even more networks on the plan. Media planners include multiple networks with the idea that they will optimize the plan over time by dropping the weakest performers. The problem with this strategy is that planners (and clients, for that matter) rarely have the data and analytics to make the right decisions, while the networks do everything …

In a move that can be likened to man's first step on the moon, Burberry has ventured into social networking, launching TheArtoftheTrench.com. Seriously, this is a big deal -- at least in the world of luxury brands, which have resisted mingling with common folk on the Internet. But Burberry is diving into the trenches with a site that celebrates its iconic trench coat.

Aaron Smith and Lisa Harmon are regulars at MediaPost's Email Insider Summit, where they appeared again this past December. But this time, they found themselves more in the limelight and receiving a few more huzzahs than usual.

With over 75 percent of consumers now having picture messaging capabilities on their phones, visual recognition advertising has been a hot topic of late, enabling companies to launch a virtual conversation with their target consumer via traditional media. Through mobile activation, companies have found a way to not only deliver a wide range of brand content, but open an actual dialogue with the consumer.

When Facebook's director of sales in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Blake Chandlee, presented at IAB Spain's conference recently, he said in order to generate new demand for products, marketers need to move up the consumer funnel. "The power of the social graph is changing the discovery process," he said.

Every day, online retailers are forced to wonder why they couldn't close the deal with customers who leave items orphaned in their shopping carts. Was there a problem with the site? Confusion about the shipping costs? Did they just go to grab a sandwich and never come back?

The day we announced the honorees of OMMA magazine's 2009 Agency of the Year Awards, an intern at R/GA, which we selected as Agency of the Year, tweeted "Does this make us interns of the year?"

Hulu hooping across platforms: When it made an upfront-style deal with Hulu, Mediavest moved millions of dollars out of broadcast and into the digital space for such old-line clients as Procter & Gamble, showing the confidence to make industry-leading moves, with the scale and means to pull them off in meaningful ways. And it has paid off.

Social to the bone: Many agencies are fond of saying they are digital at the core. Crispin Porter + Bogusky may make a claim further than this. It is social to the bone.

Born to run: Working both with agency partners such as Droga5, Wunderman and Ogilvy as well as, increasingly, as digital AOR (including recent wins Aflac and SoBe), Firstborn has raised the bar for advanced design and development that feels somehow simple and intuitive to users. After all, all the fancy 3-D animation in the world doesn't amount to much if it feels forced or unnatural.