Lisa Fischer, a sales veteran at Discovery who has helped get the sales group for the 2011 Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) off the ground, is moving over to Ion. She joins as senior vice president of network sales. Fischer had been at Discovery for more than 10 years, recently working on the transition of Discovery Health Channel to OWN. She has also worked with networks Animal Planet and Travel Channel. In prime time, the Ion network has just launched an Emeril Lagesse original show, while offering off-net dramas such as "Criminal Minds" and "NCIS."

CRM agency Merkle said it is launching a service to facilitate delivery of targeted emails across mobile devices, whether iPhone, Palm Pre, Droid or another. Challenges have included emails appearing on screens differently from device to device. Tim Judson, vice president, email solutions at Merkle stated “we found that mobile email users spend approximately 18% of their permission email time on a mobile phone, indicating the importance of sending email that renders correctly across multiple devices.�

Chris Berman is back, back, back. For the uninitiated, that's his home-run call. And the ESPN sportscaster since 1979 has signed an extension, though details were not disclosed. He'll continue to host a slew of NFL shows, and still contribute to "SportsCenter," which he has for more than 30 years, going back to when anchors wore mustard-colored jackets.

Carlo Catajan, Yahoo Mail product manager, says the company ended its relationship with Goodmail Systems in February. Yahoo felt its control of its infrastructure gives it more control and visibility of what users want and it can offer the same functionality in-house. Dan Lewis of Microsoft's Hotmail said it is still in discussions with Goodmail about how to use it in some areas. Goodmail has a CertifiedEmail product, among other platforms.

At the Insider Summit, Carlo Catajan, product manager at Yahoo, said the company is looking at ways to make emails more "dynamic." For example, if a person wants to rate a movie watched last night on Netflix, he or she can do so within messages and without leaving the Yahoo Mail ecosystem. Gmail has run Netflix tests to propel more functionality in an inbox, and Yahoo is looking at similar options. "We're looking into innovating the email message itself," Catajan said, referring to more options than reading and sending. Catajan said the initiatives are likely to come …

Yahoo Monday confirmed hiring ex-Microsoft exec Blake Irving as chief product officer. He will report directly to CEO Carol Bartz and be responsible for the vision and strategy behind the company’s global consumer and advertiser product portfolio. In a statement, Bartz said Irving, brings “genuine large scale Internet expertise from a mature company known for world-class technology.â€� Joining Yahoo on May 17, Blake is replacing Ari Balogh, the company’s current of products and technology, who will depart in June. Before his most recent stint as a professor at Graziadio School of Business and Management in Malibu, Irving oversaw …

Buick says it will be one of only six companies to advertise on The Wall Street Journal’s application for Apple’s new iPad, which launched April 3. Said Craig Bierley, Buick and GMC’s director of advertising and sales promotions said, in a release, “We believe Wall Street Journal readers will be some of the first to purchase the latest technology from Apple.â€� Buick says the ads, touting the LaCrosse sedan, are placed between each section of the digital paper, “After each article and when swiping past certain pages,â€� per the company. Users can tap the touch screen on the …

At the MediaPost Email Insider Summit, Dan Lewis, senior product manager at Microsoft’s Hotmail, is offering a preview of research the company has done on consumer email behavior. Some findings: -90% of all email is “legitimate spamâ€� -the average person has about 3 inboxes, gets about 200 emails a week – and deletes 30% of those -they say they want to read about 60% -85% of people check their inbox more than once a day The reasons why people use email -- related to commercial email: 1) for online shopping 2) receiving billing statements from utility …

Bruce Biegel, a managing director at Winterberry Group, is giving an opening keynote at the MediaPost Email Insider Summit. An investment banker, he says there have 68 transactions in the email space since 2003. The first phase involved the likes of Experian wanting to establish a foothold, for example, and acquiring CheetahMail in 2004. Large companies wanted to buy into the digital conversation, so to speak. Next, Biegel said, came a “financing phase.â€� That helped Constant Contact go public. That phase is still continuing, by the way, with ExactTarget, raising a massive amount in 2009. ExactTarget “won …

SIS Round Table Recaps Day 2 The round table sessions following day 2 of the Search Insider Summit were just as thought-provoking as the sessions.  Here is the update - eCommerce Advertiser Round Table: Matt Lawson, Director of Marketing, Marin Software led this roundtable and provided the following notes: Themes:

• Social Media Influencing Search: How do you measure it?  How do you manage it?
• Organic social media efforts require investment and there is no formula for the number of posts, tweets, etc that work.
• Keys are to identify experts within the company …