Happy New Year all - welcome to 2009! Before we completely close the books on 2008, we thought we'd give you a quick look back at some of the best songs of the year. But instead of giving you our opinions, we asked the experts - some of our favorite music bloggers who really know what they're talking about - to pick their top 8 songs of 2008.

There's something for everyone. If R&B and hip hop is your thing, check out the AllThatsFab list. Huge acts from 2008 - like Metallica and Lil Wayne - take their place among top pop and rock songs on the ARTISTdirect and Live Daily playlists. Last but not least, Radio Exile pulls together great songs that you might have missed if you only listened to the radio in 2008.

A special thanks to our friends at AllThatsFab, ARTISTdirect, Live Daily and Radio Exile for sharing their favorites with us.

The year just started, and already we're almost in the middle of the month - and there's only 359 days till 2010. The biggest question I have about 2010 is what the glittery New Year's Eve sunglasses are going to look like. Will the "1" go on your nose, between the "0"s of your eyes? Or will "they" turn the "2" into an eyehole?

But rather than live in the future...let's take a look at the present. And at present, we have a number of new movies on tap for you this month.

• Look Who's Talking: This movie may single-handedly be responsible for the talking-baby craze that's taken over advertising and morphed into TV's dancing baby craze.

• Muppets From Space: Some things, like fine wine, cheese, and Kermit, Miss Piggy and Gonzo, get better with age.

• St. Elmo's Fire: Last but certainly not least, this brat pack classic might have created and defined a movie genre...and a generation. Still enjoyable, even if you weren't born when it came out originally.

• Wolf: The eyes, the eyebrows, the hair...have you ever wondered if Jack Nicholson is a werewolf? Scarily close to type…

Perhaps these movies are just too much temptation for you - ruining your resolution to pay attention in class or work harder at the office. Well, all resolutions are created equal...so we'll offer a little more temptation for all the resolvers out there. If you're determined to stick to your resolution, don't check out the Ignore Your Resolutions channel. For the rest of you, well, resolutions were made to be broken.

TGI Wedensday. Not only are we one day closer to the weekend (coming back from vacation is tough) but the "w" in Wednesday gives us the alliterative excuse to showcase some of of the more "out there" shows on Joost.

Up this week: Japanese reality TV shows. Japanese reality shows are, uh, shockingly creative in their approach - they have no boundaries. But somehow, through the torture, humiliation and seemingly impossible tasks, the "contestants" always have a sense of humor about their fate.

You can't really grasp it until you've seen some of the most outrageous Japanese "game" shows out there...

• Nasubi: Here's the scenario: you're a comedian who's dreamed of having your own TV show. One day, you get one - by essentially picking a winning number out of a hat. Your "prize," so to speak? You get to support yourself through your sweepstakes winnings. If you don't win food, you don't eat. If don't win soap, you're dirty. So you spend your days entering every sweepstakes and competition you can find - until you've raised 1 million Yen in money and items. Oh, and just for kicks, you're naked on national TV.

• R-mania: Now these lucky comedians are essentially kidnapped and taken to a deserted island. Rather than supplies, they're given cameras, videotapes, and a box of matches. They win if they "escape" to a place with people.

• Funako: Poor Funako...her love of bargains seals her fate. In this caper, every day Funako must find the cheapest possible ingredients for dinner. Then she must bike all over the greater Tokyo region (and it's <i>big</i>) to find them. Then she has to use these carefully selected ingredients to make dinner for her "family" of four..mannequins.

• 24 Hour Tag: Oh, this sounds like fun, right? Well, you're living in a gym, subject to an "it" at any hour of the day. And if you're caught, you're hit. Or you're kicked. Or you get bitten. And weapons are involved.

You know the most shocking thing about all of these shows? These people just don't give up - and they don't really know what they're going to win. Although being reunited with your family or not living on a desert island for the rest of your life might just be prize enough.

Today we have another advance preview for you: the new Showtime show United States of Tara. This show won't be on TV for another 10 days, but you can watch it now on Joost.

Which I did...not only because is it part of my job, but also because Toni Collette is absolutely brilliant and John Cobett isn't bad to look at. The verdict? It's definitely worth a half-hour of your day.

So who is Tara, and what are her united states? On first glance, she appears to be your generic suburban housewife, struggling to (micro)manage her career, life and teenage daughter (or at least her daughter's "activities"). Normally, the story would end there...but she has Dissociative Identity Disorder. We meet two of her "alters" in the first episode: T, "like the letter, not the drink," a trashy 15-year-old; and Buck, a smokin', drinkin', shootin' SOB. Needless to say, Tara and her alters don't have an awful lot in common.

But her husband and kids deal - scarily well - with her personality changes, though it does appear that they each have their favorites. Meet them and decide who your favorite is.

The following is an actual Skypeversation I had with a young lad from the UK who works in our office.

me: have you heard of Popetown?
him: Oh you Americans
him: You mean Vatican City?
him: ;)
me: no...
me: it's a cartoon
him: nope, I've not heard of it

While this story has been good for a lot of laughs this week, there's a perfectly good reason why my British colleague doesn't know about Popetown. Even though it was originally commissioned by BBC Three, it never aired - the show's subject matter caused quite the conTROversy (said with a British accent).

Did it deserve to be pulled? Well, it probably is offensive to some people...but it's also really funny. Hysterical, actually. Which isn't really a surprise, considering the writers and the cast (or their voices, at least):

• Mackenzie Cook, Gareth from the British version of The Office;

• Ruby Wax, an American actress who's really only known in the UK;

• Matt Lucas, famous for his roles on Little Britian; and

• Jerry Hall, model, actress, and former Mrs. Mick Jagger

And...the entire Popetown series, never before seen on TV, is on Joost...so start watching!

They're young (okay, relatively), powerful, and well dressed. Who is America's newest celebrity couple? Barack and Michelle Obama, of course.

And with just about a week left until he's inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States and moves into the White House with Michelle and the girls, it's high time for you to check out Joost Presents: Everything Obama.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you might even learn something. Don't miss the interviews, news pieces and memorable moments - then mix a little comedy, satire and music into your history and current events lesson.

The eighth season of American Idol, AKA America's largest talent show, starts tonight. So many lives have been altered as a result - and not only the Idols', but the lives of the American - nay, global - public. Where would we be without Clay Aiken and Daughtry - and they didn't even win! - not to mention Ryan Seacrest...the world would be less talentful, indeed.

Winning the show doesn't guarantee success - but last season's winner, David Cook, is doing all right. He recently shared some of his favorite songs, bands and influences with us. Want to see what it takes to become a star? Check out the David Cook Joost Jockey page to see his top picks and videos from some of the other Idol winners.

What do the Obama Inauguration, Naruto Shippuden, The L Word and Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and Whoopi Goldberg all have in common? If you couldn't figure it out from the title - it's that they're all coming soon to Joost!

To help you set your clocks, or, more appropriately, make a calendar reminder on your computer, dates and details are below.

Thursday, January 15

• Three new episodes (89, 90 and 91), of Naruto Shippuden, will be up tomorrow morning...and we'll keep adding new episodes every Thursday. That means the new episodes of Naruto Shippuden will be up - and free - one week after they air in Japan. If you've missed an episode from an earlier season, we add new "catch-up" episodes every Friday.

• Whoopi Goldberg, the star of "Ghost" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation," returns to her sci-fi roots in a new miniseries - from FEARnet called Stream. It should be a lot scarier than those "The View" round tables. If that's possible.

Sunday, January 18

New seasons of The L Word and Secret Diary of a Call Girl premiere on TV - and we'll have them on Joost too. United States of Tara premieres on Showtime that day too...but you can get ready for that new show now on Joost.

Tuesday, January 20

President-Elect Obama will be inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States...and wherever you are, you'll be able to watch this live on Joost. In the U.S. we'll be showing this through our partner CBS, and in Europe through our partner Euronews. We'll update the post with the link later this week - but in the meantime, check out our special pre-inauguration channels: Everything Obama; The Inauguration Pre-Party Playlist, featuring artists who will perform during the inauguration festivities; and Bye Bye Bush, video retrospective of the last 8 years.

It's not enough to tell you about Celebrity Deathmatch, The Trap Door and Perfect Strangers, today's new shows on Joost - we're going to tell you why you should watch them.

Up first, because it seems appropriate, Celebrity Deathmatch, reviewed by our programming team.

This show is "genius," "with pairings that are so clever, like Jack Black v. Jack White," and "really lets you live out your bizarre fantasies of what you'd like to do to celebrities - like tear off a limb."

From the other side of the pond, we bring you The Trap Door, reviewed by the small contingent of Brits awake in our office during the writing of this post.

"Incomparable to anything that's not British," The Trap Door is "awesome" and "brilliant." "Yay childhood memories!"

And last, but certainly, certainly not least, Perfect Strangers, reviewed by a handful of fans here at Joost.

"Don't be reeeeeeediculaaaas." Perfect Strangers has "Balki Bartokomus" from the "island of Mepos" and "the dance of joy," and that alone is "reason enough." But "don't miss Larry's sweaters," "the blonde stewardess girlfriends" and "their hair = hot."

After a long, successful life - as an actor and as an activist to promote the image of Latino actors, Ricardo Montalban passed away yesterday at the age of 88.

Mr. Montalban was best known for his role as Mr. Roarke, the host of Fantasy Island, where, with his assistant Tattoo, he could make anyone's dreams come true.

And it's certainly true that he made it possible for other actors' behind him to reach their dreams, so we remember him with dignity and honor.

We've talked about United States of Tara before, but we bring it up again because, (a) we love it and (b) our friends at Showtime invited us to come in and talk to Diablo Cody this morning. We figured if Diablo could find time between the ladies of The View and some actual journalists for us, we could certainly find some time in our schedule for her...and were pleasantly surprised when, upon meeting, she said "Joost, Joost...I just like to say the name."

Fortunately, the conversation didn't stop there.

Joost: You wore a lot of hats on United States of Tara – writer, creator and executive producer. Which one is your favorite?

Diablo: I always like writing above all. Producing is hard, because I’m not a detail-oriented person by nature, and that’s what being a producer is all about.

Joost: When you were writing the show, did you have a particular actor in mind for Tara?

Diablo: I’m the eternal pessimist, so whenever I write I have no hope that it’s going to be produced. Especially with television pilots – so many get written, and one gets picked up. Particularly for this role, I was worried, because I wasn’t sure if there was a working actress who would be interested and could pull it off. Then Toni read the script, and she signed on immediately – and she brings such credibility and coolness to the role. She’s unbelievably talented and handles the role with such dignity. When she signed on, I relaxed fully, and began to think that this might work.

Joost: Who came along next?

Diablo: John Corbett came along next. His role is the heart of the family, and he’s just perfect. The kids signed on after that.

Joost: Marshall [Tara's son] seems like he’s wise beyond his years. Will he crack this season?

Diablo: He won’t necessarily stay so steady and normal. He’s a real momma’s boy – you can see how much he loves her in the first episode. But that might not always be the case.

Joost: Of all the alters, who’s your favorite?

Diablo: Buck is my favorite – he’s such a trip. I really enjoy writing for Buck – he’s so honest and says everything he means. He doesn’t let anyone off easy. I think he’s a lot like me, except I’m not homophobic. And ideologically, he’s so different from Tara. Tara is enlightened, artistic and caring … and Buck is a hunter.

Joost: Which of Tara’s alters do you associate with the most? Tara, T, Buck or Alice?

Diablo: Definitely Buck. There are times in my life when I’ve needed to adopt a masculine swagger.

Joost: Did you use anyone from your life in the development of the other alters?

Diablo: I used my mother as a model for Alice. She always been very domestic, the type of woman who would clutch her pearls when she was shocked.

Joost: Does she know?

Diablo: I think she does…she watched a couple of episodes with me at the premiere, at I think she knows.

Joost: How about the other alters?

Diablo: Well, T is not even based on reality. She’s just pure ferile energy and juvenile. I like to think that I’ve drawn on myself for Tara.

Joost: What is your favorite episode of the series?

Diablo: I think episode 6 is my favorite – and the finale. Episode 6 was written by two guys from 30 Rock – Dave Finkel and Brett Baer. It’s probably one of the most chaotic episodes. And the finale – I wrote that ones, and it’s very emotional.

Joost: One of the things that strikes you when you watch the show is that the family is so accepting of their situation. Is that something you found in your research?

Diablo: It is based on our research of families living with a multiple personalities, it’s not a novelty. Granted, this is a particularly supportive family, but I’ve never been a fan of people freaking out. That’s why I had the family in Juno reacted to her pregnancy the way they did, which some people criticized, but I grew up family where you dealt with things quietly and with dignity.

Joost: We heard that you’re going to be in an upcoming episode of 90210. Do you know who you’ll be playing?

Diablo: I don’t know! I think I’ll be playing myself – but I get most of this from speculation and gossip. I’m so excited – especially about some of the people from the original show. I loved that show.

Joost: Other than nine-oh, what other old school TV shows do you like?

Diablo: I like them all…Perfect Strangers, Mr. Belvedere, Full House and Growing Pains.

Joost: What about shows that are on TV now?

Diablo: I’m addicted to the Rock of Love Bus. It’s crazy – if I were single I would definitely do that. I loved the last episode – Bret Michaels was definitely shocked, and it’s hard to shock Bret Michaels.

Joost: What else are you working on now?

Diablo: I’m working on another feature – I’m writing all the time. I wrote a feature last year and I’m just saving it.

Joost: Do you prefer writing for film or TV?

Diablo: I don’t have a preference, but writing for TV is harder because it’s episodic, and I like to wrap things up. At the end of every episode, though, you have to keep people wanting more. I was never very good at chess, and writing for TV is a lot like chess – you have to be able to pull a story out over the whole season.

Joost: Leave us hanging…what does the season have in store for Tara and the cast?

Diablo: The show builds a significant amount of momentum throughout the season and goes in a number of surprising directions…and I’m not just saying that because I wrote it.

There you go, folks. A very special thanks to Diablo Cody and all of our friends at Showtime for making this happen. And don't forget to watch the premiere of United States of Tara on Joost now, and then subscribe to Showtime so you can watch the rest of the season (including Diablo's favorite episodes).

By now, you've probably heard that the Obama Inauguration will be live on Joost tomorrow. And since we're getting down to the last couple of hours, we wanted to give you all the details.

In the U.S., we will be showing the Inauguration through our partnership with CBS. Our U.S. coverage will begin at approximately 9:30 a.m. EST, and will last until about 10:30 p.m. EST (all times Eastern in this paragraph). There may be some breaks in the coverage from 5 p.m. until 6:30 p.m., and then from 7:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. - but the CBS.com producers are going to try to show some of the action around D.C. that you won't see on TV during those breaks. And don't miss the broadcasts at 6:30 and the prime-time special with Katie Couric at 9 p.m. (and her web-only show which begins at 10 p.m.)

In the rest of the world, coverage will begin at 16.00 GMT and will last until approximately 20.30 GMT. This will be continuous coverage of the inauguration - after 18.00 GMT, the coverage will go in and out of the festivities and parade until the end of the broadcast.

Also - and this is very exciting for us - we'll have a live chat powered by Meebo during the inauguration - so you'll be able to share your thoughts about tomorrow's events in real time, as you watch the inauguration. You'll see the chat tomorrow when you go to the Obama Inauguration Live page - all you have to do to participate in the conversation is start typing. There will be Joost moderators in the chat (you can recognize them by the "Joost Staff" after their names - so feel free to ask us any questions you have. It's the first time we're doing chat in the web browser, so there may be some kinks - but thanks for your patience!

That's just about it from our inauguration headquarters (which are spread across three countries). Look forward to chatting with you tomorrow.

While we still have our eyes on the inauguration coverage (in the U.S., at least), the day is coming to a close. Thank you to all who tuned in to watch President Obama's inauguration on Joost - whether you watched it Europe, South America, Asia, Africa or Australia via Euronews, or whehter you're still watching our CBS coverage now. We had a lot of fun today, and enjoyed watching and chatting with you.

But in the off chance that you missed it - if you just couldn't get out of class, or couldn't drop off a conference call, or didn't wake up in time ...you can now watch select moments from the inauguration on demand (which means you can watch on your iPhone or iPod too). Outside of the U.S., you can relive Obama's speech right now - and the entire inauguration will be up on the Euronews channel soon. In the U.S., we've picked some of our favorite moments for the Everything Obama channel, including Obama's speech. Complete news and analysis of the day can be found on our CBS News channel.

Thanks again for tuning in today...we look forward to bringing you more live events in the future, though we can't guarantee that they'll be as historic as today was.

You may have noticed a few changes to our video pages last week. In addition to trying out a new design under the video player, we've just launched our (beta) recommendation engine - the "You Might Like" and "Have You Met?" bricks on our video page.

These "bricks" are "in beta" and will evolve over the next few months. Recommendation algorithms are tricky beasts, and you generally don't know how well one of the algorithms is going to work until you're using it with large production data sets and many users. We looked at a number of engines on the market and were quite impressed with what we saw, but at the end we decided to build this in-house so we could tailor it to the structure of our data.

I should really say recommendation engines, plural, as we're trying a hybrid of several different approaches that the team has been working on for the last few months. We've noticed patterns where people tend to travel in packs across our content library, and built our way from there to an approach that first recommends users with similar tastes ("Have You Met?") and, from that set, recommends content ("You Might Like"). We're not trying to be a dating service, but we do find that we often check out each other's profile pages when we're in the mood for something new. (For example, I tend to like Allan's music favorites and Samantha's comedy picks.)

When we don't have enough data to form a precise recommendation (which happens if you haven't logged in, for example), we switch over to an entirely different approach. For content recommendations, we're currently using an algorithm based only on what you're watching at the moment, a users-who-watched-x-also-watched-y approach. For "Have You Met," we blend in an editorial voice and select users from the community whom we feel represent interesting and diverse profiles at Joost. As a site with professional content, we are constantly playing with the balance of editorial versus data-driven approaches in our new features.

This is our first time out with these engines on Joost.com, and there we know there will be quite a bit of evolution. As always, if you have time to give feedback on these new features (or just the site in general), don't hesitate to write us with the good, the bad and the ugly at feedback@joost.com.

Judging from office chatter, Twitter and Facebook feeds, it looks like people are almost as excited about tonight's Lost premiere as they were for yesterday's inauguration. And that might only be a slight exaggeration.

Well, if you just can't wait until 9 Eastern/8 Central...check out the original "stranded on an island" TV show right now! We're talking, of course, about the crew and passengers of the SS Minnow: Gilligan, the Skipper, the millionaire and his wife, a movie star, and the rest.

That's right, it's the original uncharted, deserted TV island - Gilligan's Island Get your deserted island fix now!

And thus begins a month of speculation as we count down to the Oscars, a.k.a. the Super Bowl for Women. Most of the focus is on Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress - but if you were to overlook the Best Makeup category this year, you would miss Hellboy's one Oscar nom.

Benjamin Button leads the nomination way with 13 nominations...but Slumdog Millionaire is close behind with 10.

And included among the Best Actor nominees is everyone's favorite comeback story of the year - Mickey Rourke. In an example of art predicting life, 8 years ago he appeared in this Enrique Iglesias video. Now, he might just be a hero.

We just added two new channels - Dilbert and The New Yorker Animated Cartoons - which got us thinking about the fate of the newspaper business and if our tautology of "a video is worth a thousand pictures, and a picture's worth a thousand words, so therefore a video is worth a million words" is true. Naturally, these are not questions we're going to attempt to answer here. We'll simply ponder what it's like to watch the funnies.

Time warp back to our childhood...and the funnies were a Sunday morning treat - the only time that we were actually interested in the newspaper. But as we grew up, even though we still wanted to be reading the funnies, it began to seem less acceptable. At least in public. So we subscribed to The New Yorker, because it had cartoons, only to discover they were harder to understand than the articles.

Fortunately, the comics have evolved - and you can now watch them instead of read them...and the result is a totally different experience. You still get your dose of laughs in a quick bite - about 30 seconds or less. Rather than a thought cloud or a speaking bubble, you get actual moving lips and real exploding heads.

So does it work? In our opinion, yes. But check out Dilbert and The New Yorker cartoons for yourself to decide.

Whether they're guilty pleasures or shows you love, we have lots of great MTV (and VH1, for that matter) shows right now. And so, without further ado:

• The City: Whitney (from The Hills) has moved to NYC. In case you missed the start of the season, we have the first four episodes now - and will add new ones every week.

• Confessions of a Teen Idol: The familiar "group of people living in a house" reality show format pits seven former teen idols (from Baywatch, Beverly Hills 90210, TJ Hooker and more) against each other for one last chance at fame.

• Juvies: A behind-the-bars look at kids walking the line between being good and being very, very bad. As an aside, has running away always been a crime?

• Friday: The Animated Series: All your favorite characters from Ice Cube's Friday movie series...in cartoon format.

• Last but not least, are clips from one of Diablo Cody's favorite shows, Rock of Love Bus, and Sober House.

If, by chance, you find only a couple of episodes or a couple of clips and wonder why you can't watch more...well, we're adding new episodes and clips every week, so come back to get your fix.

lab
n: a workplace for the conduct of scientific research [syn: {laboratory}]

Well, perhaps our research isn't scientific, as it will be aimed at airing innovative projects, which might just be an experiment or might be the early stages of something that'll one day turn into a Joost product.

The caveat to this is whilst the projects should work nicely it's possible that some aspects might be a little rough around the edges and they may change or go away as we work to improve and refine them, or decide to work on something better. :)

As always feedback and ideas are appreciated. Email us at labs@joost.com.

You can keep up to date on what we're doing via the labs blog - and today we launched our first Labs Project - Jigsaw - which is a neat mashup of Joost's extensive video library with LastFM's music matching intelligence.

You can find out more about Jigsaw here.