According to a regulatory filing that surfaced earlier this morning, Amazon.com founder and chief executive officer Jeff Bezos again requested not to receive additional compensation in 2011 due to his “substantial ownership” in the company.

For the record, Bezos’ stock ownership is approximately 19 percent, Amazon.com says.

Last year, Bezos received $1.68 million in total compensation, which is exactly the same amount he received in 2010, according to the SEC filing (via the WSJ).

(Bonus link: Amazon.com’s annual letter to shareholders)

Bezos’ annual base salary was $81,800, but other compensation (to cover security and travel related costs) brings the total to just south of $1.7 million. Remarkably, his base salary hasn’t increased since 1998, a year after Amazon.com went public.

Although Bezos has been chairman of Amazon.com’s board since he founded the company in 1994, he doesn’t receive any compensation for his services as a company director in addition to his compensation as CEO.

Furthermore, Bezos has never received any stock-based compensation from Amazon.com.

The relatively low solary makes Bezos one of the lowest-paid CEOs at a major public company, but he has billions of dollars ‘on paper’ to wipe his tears with.

On a sidenote: Forbes just named Bezos the best CEO in America, and TIME magazine counts him among the most influential people in the world.

According to the SEC filing, the annual base salaries of other senior execs such as CFO Thomas Szkutak and SVP, International Consumer Business, Diego Piacentini, have also remained unchanged ($160,000 and $175,000, respectively).

Jeffrey A. Wilke, Amazon.com’s SVP, Consumer Business, did see his base salary increase by $5,000 in 2011, from $160,000 to $165,000.

The online retail and cloud computing giant will release its first-quarter 2012 financial results on April 26, and we’ll examine them closely when they hit.

Also read:

Is Amazon planning its next movie-streaming move?

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos relaunches Blue Origin website for private spaceflight

Amazon tipped to launch three new Kindle tablets in 2012

Who is the next great leader in technology?

I’m a big fan of simplicity, because it shouldn’t take rocket science to explain a service or product. One of the masters of simplicity is Philip Kaplan aka Pud, who has made some fun products that even your mom can understand.

One of his most recent creations, TinyLetter, allows people to start an email newsletter in just a few clicks. It was purchased by MailChimp in August.

Kaplan’s latest app, Bellbot, might not get acquired, but it’s yet another interesting creation from a guy who has seen it all in Silicon Valley.

The service allows you to drop a single line of code on any page of your site, and a bell will ring when someone hits it. In a TinyLetter email today, Kaplan explains the service:

I came up with the idea a long time ago when I read a story about how Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder) in the early days rigged a bell to play every time Amazon had a new customer. Also I think it’s fairly common for sales people to ring a bell (or smash a gong) every time they have a sale. So this is a virtual version of that.

All you have to do is sign up for Bellbot, and you’ll get a unique code to drop on any page of your site. To go along with the usage Kaplan suggests, you should put the code on a “Thank You” page that happens after someone signs up for your site or buys something.

After you’ve placed the code on your page, just keep your Bellbot page open, sit back and relax. As soon as people start hitting your chosen page, the app will ring. It sounds goofy, but if you’re just getting started, this type of incentive will definitely keep you and your team in the know and pushing forward to keep going.

This could be great for a charity who is having an event and wants to let everyone in attendance know when a new donation is made. As donations come through and Bellbot starts sounding off, more people will be excited to donate too. This one falls under the “Why didn’t I think of that?” category, and Kaplan is a master at churning these types of apps out.

➤ Bellbot