Forget Top 10 lists highlighting the best music, books, films, whatever. The Top 10 Incredible Animal Videos list is all you need to ring in the new year!

We miss you Skidboot. Congratulations for being the number 1 Incredible Animal Video of 2008!!!

Many blessings to you and all during this holiday season.

Love one another.

Apple yesterday announced that this year will be the last year that the brand will headline the IDG-produced Macworld Expo. The announcement came after the speculation—and subsequent confirmation—that ceo Steve Jobs would not be keynoting the January event, as he has every year since his return to Apple in 1997. This year, instead, the keynote will be delivered by Apple senior vp Philip Schiller.

In a press release, the brand positioned its exit from Macworld as a strategic move, citing the popularity of its retail stores and website as more effective ways to reach customers, and noting recent pullback from other shows including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

Sol Sender, who led a design team for the Obama 08 logo, was recently interviewed about the project.

Here’s a walk through the various logo options, with some of Sol’s thoughts. The full interview videos can be watched on the website of VSA Partners (where Sol is now a strategist).

See the designs here

Apparently, this lady was auditioning for an XBOX video game commercial that involved shooting guns. I love the internet.

The Century of Self is what they’re calling the sixth LP from bombast bringers …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. The 13-song, Chris Coady-produced disc follows up to 2006’s So Divided and is due February 17 from the band’s own Justice Records imprint Richter Scale.

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Burger King’s “Whopper Virgins” are going viral, just as the fast feeder intended. But while the cheeky camapign has yet to take off, early numbers and engagement with the videos is promising, according to an online tracking group.

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The annual BritBus Tour will make its reprise on college campuses around the country next fall with Virgin Atlantic and Gibson Guitar as two of the primary sponsors.

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A number of senior executives at EMI and the label’s owner, private equity firm Terra Firma, have left the company, the Telegraph has reported.Numbered among the departing executives are Chris Roling, the managing director of portfolio business at Terra Firma and a senior director at EMI for the last 16 months. Roling was regarded as a “key player” at both firms and was focused exclusively on EMI since August.

Ashley Unwin, Terrra Firma’s managing director of talent, has also taken leave. Since 2007, Unwin served as EMI’s CEO for UK and North America.

Francois van der Spuy, another director at Terra Firma, who had been exclusively tasked to EMI since August, has also reportedly left.

Additional exits may be in the offing, including Stephen Alexander, Terra Firma’s operations manager and and finanncial managing director Ruiz Punja. Alexander had been overseeing EMI’s recorded music catalog since March ‘08, and Punja had overseen several major acqusitions for Terra Firma, including EMI and Odeon.

The departures are likely related to the new CEO at EMI, Elio Leoni Sceti, who, according to the Telegraph, is keen to bring in some fresh blood after EMI posted losses of more than $1.2 billion dollars last year, almost 3 times the losses posted the previous year.

A scathing report issued by Maltby Capital, a Terra Firma-owned company, chalked the losses up to high operational costs, including executive salaries and “poor” operating performance. “EMI Music had a history of signing great artists but had not adapted sufficiently to the changing consumer market for music,” the reported noted

Source: Encore

Live Earth India, a concert scheduled for December 7 in Mumbai to raise money for solar energy projects, has been cancelled due to the terror attacks in the city, organisers said Saturday.

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