The new year opened amid a global economic crisis that reached beyond national borders and across industries. In 2008, businesses and individuals saw the stock market shed a third of its value, unemployment rates grow to a size unseen in decades, and financing freeze as foreclosure rates soared.

Sure, you've twirled your share of linguini in Little Italys across the country and devoured chow mein and designer knock-offs in Chinatowns from Manhattan to San Francisco, but when was the last time you enjoyed a cup of Earl Grey in the Little Britain part of town? Maybe never.

As global unemployment levels swell to scary levels, The Queensland Tourism Board is doing its part. One new job. It's not a million jobs, but it's not negative 100,000, which seems like the average figure every morning on the front page of the Gray Lady. And this is not just any job. It's the "Best Job in the World": A caretaker will serve the Commonwealth for six months by occupying a waterfront home overlooking the Whitsunday Islands and report on the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef.

Is cable the next front on the analog TV wind-down wars? While the media industry breathed a collective sigh when regulators pushed off the analog TV shutoff, another TV shutdown saga is heating up. The cable industry has slowly but surely moved analog TV channels to digital. And far from smoothly.

Amid a significant slide in automotive advertising, Toyota's Scion brand is launching a new ad campaign that will increase its visibility in traditional media such as television and print. It's a subtle shift for a brand that's known for using underground marketing tactics such as street teams and wild postings to promote its cars rather than television campaigns.

Shepard fairey had a rough february. first the ap threatened to charge the artist, who came to national prominence with his Obama Hope posters, with copyright infringement. Then Boston police arrested him before the opening of his solo show "Supply and Demand" at the Institute for Contemporary Art, after they'd determined Fairey tagged two prominent locations in Boston with Andre the Giant artwork. Even the original "Andre the Giant has a posse" image - which dates back to Fairey's days as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design and has appeared everywhere from buildings to gallery shows to …

From picketing to marching, people have been banding together around causes they passionately believe in for decades. Never before has the scale and speed in which change can be effected been so massive, though.

When Passport Video created a 16-part video documentary on Elvis Presley's life, the finished product relied on material from television appearances and recorded performances, as is customary, but showed just a wee bit too much of the King's performances without adding any additional context or insight. And that's why the courts ruled against them in 2003 in what's become a textbook violation of fair use.

Forget eharmony.com or match.com - kissmein3d.com is where it's at if you're feeling lonely and looking for virtual companionship.

CBS' hit How I Met Your Mother has a knack for taking show references and parlaying them into online reality. The best part: Each site solidifies fans' attachment to the quirky comedy. Forget cbs branding: This is cyberspace as show extension. Only dedicated viewers are likely to type in obscure urls, making the inside jokes even funnier. The weekly episode may end, but the fiction goes on forever; and as viewers live more of their lives online it makes sense that their shows would follow them there in a way that moves beyond streaming video.