Retail email guru Chad White has joined Seattle-based Smith-Harmon, Inc. as research director. White, who had been director of retail insights and editor-at-large at the Email Experience Council â€" which was recently merged into the email marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association, will produce research on retail email marketing practices, and will perform industry outreach to support Smith-Harmon’s clients, including Alaska Airlines to Williams-Sonoma. All of White’s upcoming research reports, including a recap of “Cyber Monday” activity later this week, will be available for download in the Research Library, along with research from other Smith-Harmon team members. http://smith-harmon.com/blog/ …

That's what Colin Gillis, President, Click Capital, seemed to suggest during the final panel at OMMA Ad Nets, comparing Google to the traditional owned-and-operated network TV programming and distribution model.

When is adding incremental value not enough? According to Colin Gillis, President of Click Capital, networks incrementally adding value is not going to be enough to get agencies to use yet another technology.

During the "Network Survivor" panel at the OMMA AdNets show in New York, Terence Kawaja, Managing Director of GCA Savvian Advisors, pointed out that only 14 ad networks have had exits in the past year. If there are more than 300 nets out there, that's less than 5 percent of the total.

 At the OMMA AdNets panel, “The Long Tail Wags Back: Can Ad Nets Be Media Companies?”, an audience member asked the pertinent question: Why do ad networks aspire to become media companies? Why not just partner with one?   Brian Fitzgerald, President and co-founder of Gorilla Nation …

Reach vs. quality of reach is a great issue being raised by Wayne Arnold, CEO & Founder of digital marketing agency Profero. If they’ve got a $100,000 budget, explains Arnold, an advertiser might do better to effectively target and influence 30,000 users rather than get a single, unmemorable ad out to 1 million users.

Ask Brian Fitzgerald, President and Co-founder, Gorilla Nation, what his biggest pet peeve is concerning the way agencies plan advertising network buys, he'll tell you it's that there's "too, too much focus on reach."

Shane went so far as to say that ads providing health-related information themselves can be considered media. "Where the line gets blurred is consumers don't care," he said. "Place in the right context, that (health) advertising delivered well is a compelling content understanding."