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News Corp.'s Fox took the strongest stand, telling advertisers its top-rated programs generated more social-media reaction than anything cobbled together by Netflix (which recently launched "Lillyhammer") or Hulu (which has a new program, "Battleground"). Peter Rice, the network's chairman of entertainment, noted that "none of the pure digital companies—not Google, Netflix, Yahoo or YouTube—can currently compete with our reach or scale." To bolster the argument, Fox is opening a unit called "The Bridge" that will create tailored promotions to work TV advertisers into social networks and other new-media venues where fans of TV shows are interacting.

Unlike Conde's exchange, though, Hearst Digital Media's platform is not aimed at increasing sell through on its sites; the company will continue to partner with select display and video ad networks to unload its unsold ad inventory. Rather, the new "audience exchange" (as Hearst is calling it) will let advertisers who are making upfront buys with Hearst's direct sales team target specific groups of consumers across Hearst Digital Media's 25-plus online brands, which include web and mobile sites for Seventeen, Elle, Good Housekeeping and Esquire.

In this case, that personal assistant technology is being applied to a specific industry — banking. (Banking was, incidentally, one of the industries called out by Siri co-founder and former CEO Dag Kittlaus when he wrote a column for TechCrunch about the future potential of the virtual personal assistant.) BBVA Chief Innovation Officer Beatriz Lara Bartolomé says Lola is named after a real BBVA sales agent in Madrid, Spain. Her numbers were orders of magnitude better than anyone else’s, and when BBVA researchers interviewed her about the secrets of her success, they were most impressed by her passion and enthusiasm for the customers.

Gilt Taste, the company’s food platform, is to release a free iPad-only app, also called Gilt Taste, on Wednesday. Its 140 recipes are presented straightforwardly — all text, one recipe step on each page, no videos — except for one game-changing feature. Using the iPad’s built-in camera, which tracks your hand movements, you can turn the pages of the recipe without touching the tablet. Lift your hand in front of the screen, brush it from right to left (as if turning the page of a book), and the screen flips to the next step. Wave your hand from left to right, and it goes back to the last step.

If you’ve been wondering how you can bring your Android app idea to the legions of HUD-goggle-wearing snowboarders around the world, wait no longer. Recon Instruments, the company behind the MOD Live, is launching an SDK at Google I/O this week. Developers will be able to access APIs for the device's long list of sensors, which include an altimeter, 3-axis accelerometer, and a barometer. To show off what’s capable with the SDK, Recon is showing off an app called RTP LiveView (video below), that shows you current snow and weather conditions, and offers GPS mapping and lift information. Why wait until next year to realize your HUD dreams? Recon’s SDK is available for download now from its site.