Chicken wings, whether hot, barbecued, plain, sweet and sour or any other way, are one of, if not the most convenient fast foods available. Now with Super Bowl Sunday encroaching upon us, it’s apparent that wings are at the forefront of the food category. It has been estimated, no matter how they’re prepared, there will be approximately 1.25 billion wings served at parties, bars and other social gatherings alike on the day of the game.

One wing enthusiast was quoted saying:

“They are easy to bring to parties and easy finger food to eat.”

Reportedly, Buffalo wings were created in the year 1964 at a bar in Buffalo, NY. Apparently the delicious wings attracted such celebrities as John Candy to Hilary Clinton. Traditionally, wings are served with bleu cheese and celery or ranch dressing and celery. In Buffalo, NY, Mayor Stan Makowski titled July 29th Official Chicken Wing Day back in 1977. Travel back to 1984 where Marino Games introduced “The Buffalo Style Chicken Wing Game”. in the game player could use cards to complete orders of wings and answer chicken associated trivia questions.

If you can do the math, 1.25 billion wings comes out to somewhere around 100 million pounds of chicken flappers: that’s certainly an impressive number. Traditional wings are found to be most popular among people, but boneless wings are steadily gaining popularity. Restaurants across the nation are preparing for a booming take-out business day well within the week and franchises aren’t going to slack on service either according to one manager of Buffalo Wild Wings. Even with the one day event of the Super Bowl, the wing popularity doesn’t intend to stop with March madness just around the corner, wings are ready to fly into the mouths of basketball fans too.

With the day so close, what type of convenient food do you prefer? Pizza? wings? Chips with dip? Let us know your favorite game day foods in the comments section.

Whether you believe it or not, celebrities are risky business. In last year’s ads, commercials that did not feature celebrities as a main point did 9.2% better than those which did. Just 5 of the ten least effective ads last year that featured celebrities were Groupon’s ad featuring Timothy Hutton, Lipton’s ad featuring rapper Eminem, GoDaddy.com’s ad featuring Joan Rivers, SalesForce.com’s ad starring Will.I.Am and Stella Artois’ commercial featuring Adrian Brody.

Animals can be an advertisers best friend. Ads with animals did substantially better than ads with celebrities, performing 21% better. Also Animal ads did 14% better than those ads not featuring animals.

Just a couple of the top 6 ads from last year according to Ace Metrix

Automotive brands such as Chevy, Ford and Dodge are typically one of the most effective advertisers. Last year, Volkswagen’s “The Force” ad was the top automotive ad being 10% more effective than the average ad. It also took the the 8th most effective ad of the game. The major theme of last year’s game was “Made In America” half of the top ten ads featured companies such as dodge, ford and chevy.

Internet brands, statistically, have never faired well. There were no dot.com ads in the AceMatrix.com top 10 Super Bowl ads last year. Half of the top 10 least effective Super Bowl ads featured dot.com names.

But once your molten hot factory-produced meat pastry is ready, another problem arises. In order to eat said device, you have to put down your controller and pause your game.

Well, not anymore. Thanks to Ben Heck of The Ben Heck Show, you’ll never have to stop playing to eat a Hot Pocket again.

That’s because he has engineered a Hot Pocket Dispenser that attaches to your Xbox 360 controller. The device allows you to mechanically feed yourself the Hot Pocket while you continue playing your game. It’s sort of like a meat and cheese push-pop.

Check out the entire invention/construction/demonstration below:

You’ll never have to grease up your controller with food fingers again.

[Via Geekosystem]

“As you know, Urbanspoon has always been a great way for you to find your next favorite restaurant,” a spokesperson for Ubranspoon tells WebProNews. “Now, we’ll help you remember all of the places you’ve eaten — the epicurean adventures, the everyday neighborhood lunches, and even the terrible dives.”

“Dineline lets you quickly and easily record your dining history,” she explains. “You can add as much or as little information as you want. You can keep it as simple as noting the time and place. Or you can capture what you ate, take pictures, and leave notes. Your information stays private unless you choose to share it.”

“Dineline’s more than a way to help you remember where you’re eating,” she continues. “We’ll also compile interesting statistics for you. What’s your favorite cuisine? Your most popular restaurant this month? Dineline can show you this and more.”

For now, it’s only available on the iPhone version, which can be updated/downloaded from the Apple App Store. No word yet on the Android version.

View more daily video round-ups here.

Matt Cutts talks PageRank split possibilities:

NMA does Ndamukong Suh:

Stephen Hawking welcomes you to YouTube Space Lab:

New Domino’s Pizza iPad app:

Little Printer:

Google Maps goes indoors:

Google Maps goes inside the airport:

Google Maps goes inside IKEA:

NYC Timelapse:

Why?

Why not?

Cadbury says, “Remember our 1kg Dairy Milk+ Bars? We’ve had some special personalised ones made, including these delicious ones for Google founders Larry & Sergey. Whose name would you like to see on a bar?”

Notice the +1 on the packaging.

Cadbury actually introduced the Dairy Milk +1 bar as it launched its Google+ Page earlier this month.

Here’s a commercial for their Dairy Milk:

This seems like as good a time as any to point out how Cadbury is utilizing the Google+ brand page for engagement. Last week, the company shared the above video, commenting, “We put a glass and a half of joy into each of our adverts… which is probably why they were the thing you most requested for us to post! Can you match these impressive eyebrow moves?”

A day before that, the company said on the page:

We like to start our Mondays by getting things in order, so if you’d all like to stand neatly in Circles that would help us immensely

Oh but seriously… Just let us know if you’d like to be in any of our Dairy Milk, Wispa or Creme Egg circles and we’ll add you in! – Jerry

That post got 38 comments. This isn’t a tremendous amount when you think about Facebook pages, but not too bad for getting some engagement going on the young Google+ brand pages.

Cadbury has been pretty active on Google+ throughout the month, posting many photos, comments and videos.

If you’re looking for ways to make your brand page better, Cadbury’s isn’t a bad example to look at.

View more daily infographic round-ups here.

Chow looks at what to bring to Thanksgiving:

Coyle media looks at sports and smartphones:

Sports Marketing from Coyle Media, LLC.

Bankrate looks at weight loss and saving money:

So when grandma’s recipe book just isn’t cutting it anymore – here are some online resources to help you make your loved ones happy. Or at least to help you from totally ruining Thanksgiving.

(Note: There are plenty of wonderful, smaller food blogs out there. Look around, go deep into the internet food culture. You can find some amazing little resources that can be highly specialized for your needs. Don’t be afraid to jump off the beaten path when it comes to this sort of thing. This list is a starter list of sorts, with some of the big names in online recipes and food tips)

The New York Times Dining & Wine

This big dog of the food world is doing something interesting this year. They have set up a “Thanksgiving Help Line” that is there to answer reader’s questions on Turkey, Wine, Dessert, Side Dishes and much more.

Readers are asked to submit their query directly on the site or via Twitter, using hthe hashtag #ThanksgivingQs. An example of how the NYT is helping holiday chefs, many of the responses to questions like “Why won’t be cranberry sauce gel?” and “How do I get the lumps out of my mashed potatoes?” are in the form of video tutorials.

Epicurious

Epicurious, and its partners bon appetit and Gourmet, have dedicated part of their site to Thanksgiving, providing links to Thanksgiving essentials, vegetarian recipes, and “pie perfection.” They offer a beginner’s guide to Thanksgiving and have checklists that you can use to make sure you don’t forget anything.

Epicurious also allows you to sign up for email alerts for their “Thanksgiving Countdown” messages.

Chow

Chow has an entire section designated for Thanksgiving recipes. Easy to navigate tabs allow you to browse their best recipes from five years of existence. There are multiple recipes for thinks like stuffing, gravy, pies & tarts, and even cranberry sauce. A pretty awesome bonus section shows you great ways to utilize all of those leftovers.

Food Network

Food Network’s site has also created an Thanksgiving section, where they provides recipes and how-tos for pretty much all of the traditional courses you’ll need. They have a pretty extensive selection of how-to videos in their “cooking school.” And of course, there are recipes and videos from the network’s personalities like Alton Brown and Ina Garten.

Serious Eats

Serious Eats has a basic but useful collection of recipes and tips for a stress-free Thanksgiving. They also provide a drink-pairing guide as well as their “Taste-test” section that tells you which brands of frozen apple pies, stuffing, store-bought gravy, etc. are the best – just in case you don’t have to time to make absolutely everything at home.

eHow Food

eHow Food offers Thanksgiving help in the form of tips on Thanksgiving on a budget as well as tips from “in-house” contributor Rachel Ray. eHow food has plenty of recipes, including some instructional videos like how to set a great Thanksgiving table and how to crave the perfect turkey.

Of course, there are many more outlets out there to help you pull off the big meal. But these are some great places to start. What’s your favorite holiday dish, both to prepare and to eat? Let us know in the comments.

A celebration of the America worker, Labor Day was first celebrated in 1882 in New York City. By 1885, municipal ordinances were passed declaring the day an official celebration. By 1887, Oregon had become the first state to pass legislation declaring Labor Day a holiday.

In 1894, the U.S. Congress made it official.

Like most national holidays in America, the driving force behind the celebration is food. Though I consider grilling a year-round activity, some consider Labor Day as the point of food transition – a grand goodbye to the summer grilling days (if largely ceremonial). If you enjoyed our Memorial Day food and drink Twitter guide, consider this part two – more Twitter accounts to follow for recipes and tips for Labor Day and beyond –

Beer Advocate – Beer tweeting fun by @JasonAlstrom @ToddAlstrom (Alström Bros), Founders of BeerAdvocate. Hardcore champions of craft beer. Respect #Beer Tweets.

Founders of one of the most popular beer sites in the world, the Beer Advocate guys introduce you too some interesting brews that you may never have thought to try.

Serious Eats – In ur place, eatin’ ur f00dz.

Meathead Goldwyn – Barbecue Whisperer, Hedonism Evangelist, HuffPost Columnist, publishes world’s most popular BBQ website.

The Meat King. I once made his kicked-up pimiento cheese recipe and whoa…forever a fan.

Imbibe – Imbibe is your ultimate guide to liquid culture, from coffee to cocktails.

Eatocracy – We’re CNN’s food blog & we’re here to make you hungry.

Grilling Guide – How To Grill Anything. Great grilling tips and recipes.

Mark Bittman – Writer on food for New York Times Opinion and Magazine, and others. Author of Food Matters & How to Cook Everything.

He just know his stuff. About everything. Simple as that.

Enjoy the holiday!

Although Allison is not a professionally trained chef, he told us that he has always had a passion for cooking. However, he does not enjoy cooking for people. He believes that cooking should take place in a social environment. So, when he got on Google+ and began to play with Hangouts with his good friend and fellow foodie Eric McKee, he said it didn’t take long to develop the idea for the Google+ Cooking School.

“As soon as I got into it, it was a light bulb moment,” said Allison. “I realized that’s what we needed to be utilizing to teach people how to cook.”

“It was one of those real eureka moments, and it happened almost the second we got into the Hangout,” he added.

The show has taken off rather quickly and has already established a following. Allison conducts the classes in his own kitchen with two cameras, one for capturing a close-up angle of the stove, chopping block, or other in-depth procedure he is working on, and the second camera for getting an overall shot of the process.

The biggest challenge for Allison and McKee is the fact that, at this point, Google only allows 10 people to be a part of a Hangout. It makes for a cozy kitchen but makes for some great limitations for a hopeful startup. To handle this challenge, the Google+ Cooking School has tried to keep the classes very frequent. They have taken place on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday basis, but Allison told us that they plan on varying the times up.

They have also partnered with Hangout Party, which streams the Google Hangout to their site so that more people can watch the show. Allison said they plan to work more with this site.

Just as Steve Rubel and others recently shared with us, Allison and McKee are also hoping that Google will raise the limit on the number of people that can attend a Hangout. Until that time, however, they plan on working with what they have.

Their methods have seemed to be effective so far because they have already launched the concept into a business. They created a website called The Social Skillet that will archive all the free cooking classes after they air on Google+. In addition, they will offer special skills classes with prices starting at $20 per class to help fund the venture.

At this point, their business model is the typical tech startup motto of “build it and they will come.” They plan to offer more skills classes and will likely incorporate advertising in the future. Allison was quick to point out that they would never have a site that was overrun with advertising. He said that content would always be the most important and most prominent aspect of The Social Skillet.

“Two months into it, we have an idea of what we think the business model should be like,” said Allison. “Every single day, we’re taking that, and we’re testing it against what is the reality of the marketplace. So, it’s absolutely a work in progress.”

Despite figuring out the ins and outs of monetization, Allison and McKee are excited about their startup. And you have to admit, their idea is pretty impressive.

Allison told us that they were not on the level of Le Cordon Bleu or anything, but that they thought they could reach an audience aimed at mom n’ pops and families.

“We think that’s a niche in the market that has a huge amount of potential, and we’re looking forward to exploring it,” he said.