Well, actually, it’s a little unlike Netflix and Hulu. Rather than outsourcing production of original programming, Amazon is looking to create it in-house, as is indicated in Amazon’s job listings (via Ryan Lawler at GigaOm).

Recent listings include: Creative Executive, Kids, Creative Executive, Comedy, and Production Assistant.

The Job Description/Responsibilities section for Creative Executive, Comedy, says:

People’s Production Company is a movie and series production company. We are seeking a Creative Executive, Comedy to help develop half hour comedies for online and traditional distribution. Projects will primarily come from Amazon Studios. This position will report to the VP, Series Development.

Assess pilot proposals
Work with writers and artists to develop series ideas
Staff, cast and produce pilots in a cost-efficient way
Supervise series production when series are greenlit
People’s Production Company, part of the Amazon.com, Inc. group of companies, is an equal opportunity employer. This job will be located in Sherman Oaks, CA.

It looks like at the very least, Amazon is looking to offer comedies and children’s programming. My guess is that it won’t stop there. So far, Netflix is going the drama route. Hulu has gone with comedy and reality.

We may be poised to see some interesting new directions for Amazon between this and a rumored retail store.

Now trolling is never nice, but to film the tracking of an Internet troll like it was “To Catch a Predator” is just odd. It’s obvious that trolls use the anonymity of the Internet to attack people they don’t know to make themselves feel superior. It’s the bullying of the Internet era. Does it make it right? No. Does it make entertaining television? It sure does.

Check out the clip from the episode below where they confront the confirmed troll in public as he is getting onto a bus. The reporter tries to convince the man that what he is doing is hurtful to others and the troll just responds, “It ain’t illegal.” That’s pure comic gold, dear readers.

We don’t condone trolling at WebProNews, but for it to be taken so seriously just boggles the mind. Enjoy.

The reaction to such a drastic move was about what you’d expect, but even though you know it’s coming, the round-up video still manages to be pretty damn funny, because, let’s face it, people don’t like their football-watching being interrupted.   Especially during the Super Bowl.  The reactions, as indicated, are normally in the vein of a “WTF?” reaction, but for some reason, they don’t get old.

The compilation video leads this post, and if you’d like to see the individual videos, check out Zach’s article from Super Bowl Sunday.

Naturally, the video has enjoyed something of a viral reaction, having already accumulated over 900,000 views since it was posted on Monday (February 6).  If you look at the YouTube comments, you’ll find the reaction to the video was largely positive.  

There are a quite a few “That was a lot funnier than I expected it to be! Great job!” and “i don’t think i ever laughed so hard in my life!” comments, but, as with every YouTube comments section, there is a nice amount of trolling, as well:

Look at all those sheeple wake up America there are more important things going on right now !

prskater521

And:

It’s good to see that at least there is something Americans truly care about. Unfortunately, it is not banksters looting the economy and sending jobs overseas, only someone unplugging the TV during the Super Bowl. We are in a lot of trouble.

agcw86

Sigh.  Can’t we all just get along?

AT&T says there are some neat added features to the new updated app as well, such as the ability to use your tablet as a remote control and accessing photos from your favorite shows. Use your tablet at home and link with your TV and you can receive extra content from all your shows. Use it on-the-go and never forget to DVR your favorite programs again with the full featured DVR app and the fully intuitive remote control feature, reports AT&T.

David Christopher, Chief Marketing Officer for AT&T mobility and he said this about the new technology:

“Today, we are taking our best in class TV experience and taking it to a whole new level by joining two very powerful platforms: your TV and iPad.”

He continued, saying:

“With our new app, AT&T U-verse customers have access to incredible functionality to make the TV experience much richer, from superior search and control functionality, to fresh content that tells you more about what you’re watching, to the ability to share what you’re watching with your friends through social networks. And, when they leave the home, our customers can take the U-verse experience with them.”

YouTube Vacationer, as they christened it, is an archive of video footage compiled from sources like National Geographic and LonelyPlanet. Have a look at their promotional video to get excited.

The channel is currently categorized into how you plan to vacate your normal life. Some choices proffered by YouTube are Spring Break destinations, Road Trips, Family Spots, or places that are just good to go and stuff your face (Food Spots, that is). Once you’ve decided on what type of vacation you have in mind, you can browse through a carousel of videos collected under that category to help you decide on where to go. Alternately, if you’re more of a map-minded traveler, you can choose to view the videos on an integrated Google Map that displays pinned locations of each of the videos

I foresee this site being less of a planner for a vacation you’ve already worked out and more of vacation eye candy that’s going to inspire you to spontaneously plan a long getaway weekend soon. Even then, if the worse thing this new channel does is make you wanna take a vacation, hopefully you’ve got the time and means to follow through with that urge. Get outta town, people.

In days of yore, manhood was proven through feats of strength – carrying boulders, tearing phone books, tossing dwarves. Nowadays we’re left with amazing feats of stupidity performed before web cams.

But, if you’re gonna go the self-abuse through food route, don’t go with something sugar-and-spice. Be a man.

Now, why would a fool do something like this? The clue is in his sign-off at the end. Despite being in tremendous pain and discomfort, he still manages to stammer out his Twitter and YouTube handles, followed by the plea, “Subscribe to me, cuz I’m risking my life for laughs!”

This most recent one is one of those. A young man finds an iPhone lying on the ground and brings it home. Unfortunately for him, he gets more than the standard magical and revolutionary iPhone he was hoping for. Though the acting – especially by the main character – leaves a lot to be desired, the special effects are pretty fantastic. Check out the video and let us know what you think in the comments.

She discusses how she believes that entrepreneurs are the core of society, and that they are right. She believes that the Internet exists to deliver on the promise of capitalism: Give the right tools to individuals and they will change the world. The power of the Internet lies in its ability to empower individuals, not just corporations.

This TED talk took place at TEDxBrussels in late 2011. This entire series was dedicated to speakers telling how they thought the world would look in the next 50 years.

People can claim sometimes thousands of “friends” on Facebook. But, how many of those people listed do you ever interact with in real life? How many would you want to interact with?

What about family? Has our technological interface options ever come between you and a loved one? Has anyone ever said to you, “Put the iPhone down and talk to me”? Or, “Don’t text me. Call. I want to hear your voice.”

Marshall Soulful Jones was part of Team Nuyorican 2011, 2nd place finishers at the National Poetry Slam in Boston. Here he performs “Touchscreen” at The Bowery Poetry Club, New York.

We put out a list of our top five best Super Bowl ads and the comments make it abundantly clear – the average consumer has vastly different notions of what makes these ads good. Taking a look at the Super Bowl admeter on USA Today provides a good measure of what consumers thought were the best ads. This is important to advertisers as the average consumer is there number one target. This should helps them refine their ads for the next year’s game.

What makes a good super bowl ad? What do you look for when you’re rating your personal favorites? Let us know in the comments.

Looking at the admeter, the top five ads all have a common theme – humor. People love to laugh. Ace Metrix seems to agree rating the top 10 most effective ads with the most effective being the ones based around humor.

The two ads that scored the highest tying for first place with a 671 Ace score was the M&M’s “Just My Shell” ad and Doritos “Sling Baby” ad. Filling the rest of the top five are humor-based ads that appeal to consumer’s base instinct to laugh.

The CEO of Ace Metrix, Peter Daboll, confirms this by saying to Forbes that humor was the most effective advertising strategy at this year’s Super Bowl which is confirmed by so many ads trying to be funny.

Daboll says that animals go hand in hand with humor as Coca Cola’s polar bear ads both ranked in the top 10. Doritos and Skechers both used dogs in their Super Bowl ads that catapulted both companies into the top 10 ads as well.

Not all ads are created equal though, and not all ads are intended effect to make people laugh. Serious ads that get the attention of viewers on something that they can relate to, such as the current financial landscape, can get people interested in products. Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime America” ad scored well at sixth place with an Ace score of 633. GE’s “Building Something Big in Louisville” got tenth place with an Ace score of 600.

Daboll calls it the “Made in America” ad that connects especially well with men. These kind of ads really “connect with the American people” in a way that the humor-filled ads cant. He goes on to say that these ads can “deliver a serious, emotive message and connect with viewers during the Super Bowl.”

He also points to the success of longer than usual ads that he calls “storytelling” ads. The Chrysler and Volkswagen ads both nailed this effectively by lasting more than the usual 30 seconds without losing interest of viewers.

Looking at the reaction to the ads across social media platforms reveals totally different results. While the H&M David Beckham underwear ad performed poorly with an Ace score of 450, the ad was the number one on social media platforms garnering a whopping 108,914 comments across all major social media platforms according to Bluefin Labs. Bluefin gathered their data in a 45-minute window after each ad aired to provide a fair estimate of how they do since the ads will most likely get more exposure over the coming days.

Compared to the Ace Metrix score, the Bluefin scores may be less effective as they just measure the comments. Comments can be negative and negativity usually outperforms anything else when it comes to online comments. Still, bad press is better than no press so H&M can take that as a sign that at least people were talking about their ad even if they didn’t like it. Unruly research shows brand recommendation as being an effective tool and social media provided that during the Super Bowl.

There is a third metric to consider when rating these ads’ effectiveness. After last year’s Volkswagen ad that premiered before the game garnered more than 90 million views over the past year, other advertisers wanted to cash in on that exposure. Honda’s Ferris Bueller ad has gotten over 18 million views on YouTube since its release with Volkswagen’s new Star Wars ad getting over 17 million views. Both ads used a teaser that led up to the actual ad that boosted their effectiveness.

AutoTrader and Edmunds.com both showed an even newer form of ad effectiveness as well through search and Web traffic. They rated auto ads by how much search and Web traffic they received during the game confirming that ads don’t necessarily have to be crowd pleasers to be big winners. While AutoTrader’s graph shows that search for vehicle models boomed during their respective advertisements; Edmunds.com’s research shows Web traffic to a specific model increased dramatically once its ad aired.

AutoTrader and Edmunds clash with the Ace Metrix numbers as well. Ace is showing that Fiat, while getting the most Web traffic according to Edmunds.com, was seventh in overall auto ad effectiveness.

Once again, as evidenced by our own picks, Super Bowl ads are different for everybody. It’s becoming harder and harder for businesses to pinpoint exactly what ads were effective or not. There are so many metrics and scores that advertisers can go off of that it makes it hard to tell where a company went wrong. While the Ace score can be a good indicator, other ad watch groups show that social media can go in the completely opposite direction.

It doesn’t seem like there’s any one way to really tell whether or not an ad was effective at this year’s Super Bowl. The best bet is to use the USA Today admeter as it’s directly from consumers voting on the ads they liked and combine that with the results from ad firms like Ace Metrix and Bluefin.

With so many different metrics to choose from, should advertisers look to all of them or stick to traditional metrics like Ace? Let us know in the comments.

As a final piece of wisdom, almost all studies confirmed that sexy just doesn’t really work unless you’re David Beckham. Sorry, GoDaddy, maybe you should try something else next year.

Take a look at our picks below and compare them to the researched best picks. There is a massive difference in opinion here, but it serves to show that Super Bowl ads are completely subjective and tastes change. While humor remains a strong contender, what people find funny is going to change year after year. There may even be a year where viewers want more “storytelling” ads with a serious topic.

Our picks confirm what this research has shown us – one man’s, or ad firm’s, picks do not exclusively determine what the best ads are anymore.

Here’s our picks for the top five best Super Bowl ads in no particular order:

Pepsi’s ad seemed to please scoring a 628 Ace score. The ad nails all the important parts of a good ad – great celebrity casting, a fun premise and good music. Check it out to see if you agree.

Volkswagen made a lot of nerds happy last year with their Darth Vader kid ad. While this year’s ad may or may not match up to that, the ending featuring classic Star Wars characters comparing the ad to last year’s ad makes up for it. It received a 590 Ace score.

Audi made us laugh this year with their Vampire Camp ad that’s sure to strike fear into the hearts of night creatures everywhere. It received a 536 Ace score.

The ad for the The Voice makes a great first impression by being action packed and featuring one of the best Betty White cameos ever.

Rounding out the best, we have Doritos. Ever since they started to let their fans make the ads, they have consistently turned out fantastic Super Bowl ads. This year is no different. It received a 645 Ace score.

What were your favorite ads of the Super Bowl? Let us know in the comments.