Follow @SethMacFarlane

Seth MacFarlane
@SethMacFarlane

Traumatized critics exhale: I’m unable to do the Oscars again. Tried to make it work schedule-wise, but I need sleep. However, I highly–>

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22 hours ago via Echofon · powered by @socialditto

Follow @SethMacFarlane

Seth MacFarlane
@SethMacFarlane

–> recommend the job, as Zadan and Meron are two of the most talented producers in the business. My suggestion for host is Joaquin Phoenix.

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This doesn’t come as much of a shock, as MacFarlane indicated back in February that he wouldn’t host the Oscars again.

MacFarlane’s Oscars ceremony was the most controversial one in recent memory, thanks to things like songs about celebrities’ boobs, but the ratings were there, so it would not be out of the question for the Academy to want him back. According to reports, the broadcast was up 20% over the previous year in the 18-49 raring. It was also 3% higher in overall viewers, hitting 40.3 million.

Despite the controversy, MacFarlane’s performance had plenty of fans as well. Just look at the reactions to his February tweet about not returning.

Whether it’s the pressure of having the eyes of the world judging or the fact that Seth MacFarlane got blasted by just about every major–and minor–media source after his hosting gig this past weekend, Fey isn’t saying. But she has made it clear she doesn’t want the job, no matter what William Shatner thinks.

“It’s an honor to be ‘Shatnered’, but I just feel like that gig is so hard,” she said. “Especially for, like, a woman — the amount of months that would be spent trying on dresses alone . . . No way.”

Indeed, no matter how funny or likable a host may be, they do have to abide by Academy rules when it comes to the night’s jokes, something MacFarlane learned this year. And even though they approved his bits, he got quite a bit of backlash for the opening number, “We Saw Your Boobs”, and several sexist comments he made about various females in the audience throughout the night.

For now, there’s no word on just who will be hosting next year’s show, but let’s hope for Oscar’s sake that it’s someone good, like Will Ferrell. The show certainly could use an injection of energy and silly fun that’s actually funny.

TMZ has put out video from the event, in which the reporter asks her to demonstrate the device, not realizing who she is. She demonstrates by taking her own video of the reporter, and sharing it with a friend before the reporter is even done with his own video.

More of the story at TMZ.

Another Wojcicki, Anne’s sister Susan, who is SVP of Advertising at Google, made some headlines today as well with the launch of new Google ad formats.

On Sunday night, while the movie industry was celebrating its biggest night, satirical publication The Onion started a Twitter-tantrum by posting a no-holds-barred tweet meant to shock docile red carpet watchers. The tweet involved nine-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, who was up for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Beasts of the Southern Wild. The tweet was vulgar and quickly deleted, but read:

Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a cunt, right? #Oscars2013

The tweet was obviously meant to be shocking, but it seemed to have touched that American nerve that is super-sensitive to certain words, especially those that imply racism or sexism.

Though The Onion issued the internet version of a retraction by deleting the Tweet (why bother?), the sentence had already spread and the flame war had started. Sensing the need to go even further than retraction, The Onion CEO Steve Hannah has issued an apology on the publication’s website and Facebook page. From the apology:

On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars. It was crude and offensive—not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however biting.

No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire.

Hannah also stated that The Onion has put in place “tighter Twitter procedures” and that the publication is “taking immediate steps to discipline those individuals responsible.”

The web is buzzing today about the opening number–”We Saw Your Boobs”–and the subsequent reactions from some of the audience members he called out, including Naomi Watts and Charlize Theron. But the clips of both actresses shown in the audience appear to be from past awards shows; Watts is wearing a totally different dress and has her hair styled differently than she did the rest of the night (though the man sitting beside her does offer a pointed look at her chest when she’s on camera).

Still, even if the reactions from the actual actresses weren’t real, the song didn’t get a lot of love from Twitter users. Some are pointing out today that several of the scenes MacFarlane references were rape scenes and say his use of them as comedy was disrespectful.

The boobs song at the Oscars is… well, puerile doesn’t quite cover it. Offensive? Dumb? Very, very unlikeable @sethmacfarlane.

— fleetstreetfox (@fleetstreetfox) February 25, 2013

Oh MAN rt @airialclark: 4 of the examples in @sethmacfarlane “We Saw Your Boobs” song were rape scenes.

— Jenny Colgan (@jennycolgan) February 25, 2013

Boobs song confirms everything I thought about Seth MacFarlane. #notimpressed #oscars

— Elizabeth Holmes (@EHolmesWSJ) February 25, 2013

The #boobs song is terrible. So is @sethmacfarlane. Terrible choice for a host. Not so family friendly. No morals, America.

— Megan (@ShoeKickChamp) February 25, 2013

Seth Macfarlane classing up the #Oscars with a song called “We Saw Your Boobs.”

— N&O TV Blog (@WarmTV) February 25, 2013

Google

Here are the top five most searched Oscar nominees, according to Google:

“At the end of the show, Best Picture winner ‘Argo’ held the #6 spot, followed by Ang Lee, Christoph Waltz, ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ and Halle Berry,” notes Google software engineer Nemo Tamir.

Google also shared the most searched red carpet dresses:

“This year’s Oscars brought with it a number of unexpected moments that grabbed our attention,” said Tamir. “Early in the show, Seth MacFarlane was visited by William Shatner in full Captain Kirk regalia, come from the future to save Seth’s monologue; at 8:36pm ET, searches for [kirk] spiked to almost 1,500 per minute. Later in the show, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ and ‘Skyfall’ tied for sound editing, and people flocked to the web with questions. Searches for [tie] spiked to more than 5,000 per minute, with many people wanting to know [has there ever been a tie in the oscars]. And in a final surprise, First Lady Michelle Obama introduced the Best Picture nominees and opened the winning envelope for ‘Argo.’ Searches for [michelle obama] spiked to 4,500 per minute.”

Twitter

“All in all, there were 8.9 million Tweets about the 85th Academy Awards: 2.1 million during the red carpet, and 6.8 million during the awards show. People at home (and in the audience) tweeted as the night’s most exciting and entertaining moments unfolded,” says Twitter’s Fred Graver.

More Twitter stats:

Best Picture award for Argo: 85,300 TPM
Adele performs “Skyfall”: 82,300 TPM
Best Actress in a Leading Role for Jennifer Lawrence: 71,600 TPM
Best Original Song for Adele: 64,000 TPM
Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Anne Hathaway: 60,400 TPM

Facebook

Facebook says Oscars buzz was at an all time high on the social network this year. According to the company there were 66.5 million Oscar-related interactions on Facebook.

“The event scored a 7.17 on the Facebook Talk Meter, trumping last year’s awards ceremony, and we saw the most buzz in the Northeast (New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut) followed by California,” says Facebook data analyst Allie Townsend. “‘Oscars’ received three times more mentions this year, while the Best Picture nominees racked up twenty times more mentions than 2012. ‘Les Miserables’ had the most Likes of this year’s top films, and despite being set in France, the film’s largest body of fans are in London. It was also the favorite film among women and people ages 13 to 17.”

Django Unchained, however, got the most mentions, Townsend says. It was the “clear Best Picture Choice” among men, she says.

“Best Picture ‘Argo’ was the most-talked about winner of the night, as mentions of the film increased by 2,460% and mentions of Ben Affleck increased by 23,500% as the director, star and producer made his acceptance speech,” says Townsend. “Affleck also launched his new Instagram account from the red carpet and shared behind-the-scenes photos throughout the night, including this one of his name being engraved on Oscar trophy itself.”

Facebook put out the following infographic looking at the trends:

[Nelson Carvajal via JoBlo]

On the site, you can find movie and celebrity “knowledge graphs” to learn more about the nominees and films. There’s also a section called “Mapping the Movies,” which lets you look at where the nominated films take place, and the birthplaces of the nominees, using Google Maps:

Starting on Friday, Google says it is giving users “VIP access to the Dolby Theatre on Google Map.”. If you search for “Dolby Theatre” in Google Maps on your browser or smartphone, Google says you’ll be able to “experience the theater as if you were there with the stars.”

I guess we’ll see about that.

Bing also announced its own Oscars picks here.

Definitely some more upbeat news from the company, which just laid off 30% of its staff.

Two grand prize winners will be selected to receive tickets to the Oscar Fan Experience red carpet bleacher seats at the event. The sweepstakes will run for 14 days (ending January 30), and on each day, users can stumble through a new list of content curated by the Academy. Categories include Oscar Red Carpet Fashion, Best Picture Nominees, etc.

Similar to a sweepstakes the company ran at the end of the year, a few people will stumble onto prize pages each day. Prizes other than the grand prizes come from Condé Nast, Etsy, Gogo, HotelTonight, Seamless, SPIN, TaskRabbit, Warby Parker and others. Daily winners will also be eligible to enter to win the grand prize.

“There’s a lot of interesting Oscars content online that many people have never seen and partnering with StumbleUpon is a fun way to help them discover it,” said Josh Spector, the Academy’s managing director of digital media and marketing. “When you Stumble the Oscars you’re going to find classic behind-the-scenes photos, amazing fan creations, sneak peek videos revealing details about this year’s show, and even the chance to be on the red carpet yourself this year – it’s a great package for Oscars fans.”

“We’re excited to deliver opportunities for movie fans to get a front-row look at this year’s ceremony – not only virtually but also in-person,” said Marc Leibowitz, VP of Business Development and Marketing at StumbleUpon. “With the help of the Academy, we’re able to present unique content about the nominees that goes beyond what viewers may already know.”

Check out the sweepstakes here.

You can check out the interactive Index here. You’ll be able to organize the Index based on each category, as well as each nominee. The Index shows sentiment over time, so you can compare how Twitter users felt about the nominees on any given day since they were announced by the Academy.

The score you see is a snapshot of the user sentiment at a particular time. Twitter analyzes tweets pertaining to each topic and compares the amount of positive tweets to the amount of positive tweets on all other topics on Twitter. So a score of 73 for Lincoln, for instance, means that tweets about Lincoln are more positive than 73% of all other tweets out there. It doesn’t mean that public sentiment for Lincoln is 73% more positive than the other nominated films.

Still, you can get an idea on just how positive users are about each nominee compared to each other by looking at their Oscars Index score.

This should remind you of the Twitter Political Index, which the site launched before the 2012 President election. It also gave the candidates scores based on their popularity as compared to all other tweets on the network. It’s clear that Oscar-nominated films, actors, and directors are much more popular than politicians. Both Obama and Romney’s index score hovered around the 20s and 30s for most of the pre-election period, while most of the Academy Award nominees boast scores over 50, many in the 70s 80s and 90s.

“Awards season also brings out the armchair film critic in many of us, as we rattle off our personal picks and pans, and predict who will take home that coveted award at the end of February. The Twitter Oscars Index offers a way to measure those discussions that happen on Twitter, and provide insight for all those closely following the exciting Oscar races. While the next six weeks are sure to be filled with crystal ball predictions of how the illustrious Academy members will vote, the Twitter Oscars Index provides another dimension to the story: the voice of the fans,” says Twitter.

But as we’re all well aware, the voice of the fans oftentimes clashes with the voice of the Academy. Beloved films are often left out in the cold, and less-beloved films are often given the top accolades.