This week, Time magazine revealed its choices for the 100 most influential people in the world, which was really only as interesting as these countdowns tend to be. The usual suspects (politicians like Germany’s Angela Merkel, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, cultural icons like Justin Bieber and the royals Prince William and Kate Middleton) were on the list along with a couple of curve balls thrown in to make you go hmm… (tennis star Kim Clijsters and actress Mia Wasikowska).

Most interesting perhaps is the reader’s choice selection — Rain, the South Korean pop star and actor who is best known here in the U.S. as the star of the film Ninja Assassin for which he won an MTV award. This is his third year atop this chart.

Above, Rain shows his acting chops and after the jump, a Rain music video. If you’re looking for a spokesperson, maybe you should give him another look.

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By now, you’ve likely heard 13-year-old Rebecca Black‘s little ditty “Friday.” Maybe you’ve even disliked it on YouTube; it just surpassed Justin Bieber‘s “Baby” as the most disliked video on the site with more than 1.2 million giving it the thumbs down. But the man behind the song doesn’t care one lick. He didn’t make the song so you would like it.

“Yeah, people didn’t like the song, didn’t like the music video, they thought it was really cheesy. But that was the whole point, to create something that was really simple but something that sticks in people’s head. To have people say ‘I hate this song, but I’m still singing it,’” Ark Music Factory CEO Patrice Wilson told Gawker. That’s probably what The Beatles were thinking.

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The NBA All-Star Game brought together the biggest names in basketball over the weekend. This year’s game had the highest ratings  since 2003 when Michael Jordan played.  But all anyone can talk about are the celebrities in general, and Justin Bieber specifically.

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Photo: Meghan Sinclair, Team Coco

What has a red pompadour, made a Justin Bieber visit hilarious for lovers and haters alike, and is still making us all wonder what the heck Team Coco really is?

The resurgence of Conan O’Brien is nothing short of staggering. He’s not #1 or #2 in the ratings but let’s take into consideration that the major networks are in 15 million more homes than Conan’s TBS is. Remember: TBS used to be known as “Channel 17″ and aired programming like this.

But I digress. In a seriously serious must-read in Fortune, the real deal details are uncovered about how Conan O’Brien went from out-of-work talk show host, to sympathetic red-headed step-child, to cyber-friggin-dude.

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Esperanza Spalding shocked shocked shocked when she took her jazzy self to the Staples Center stage last night to accept her Grammy for Best New Artist. While everyone else was asking “Who is this woman in the curious dress stealing a shiny prize from Justin Bieber?,” people who roll in White House circles knew exactly what was going on.

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Wal-Mart and Justin Bieber have entered into an agreement that will give the retailer holiday season access to items that will surely be on the wish lists of many a shrieking teenage girl. While BrandChannel reports that the Wal-Mart partnership makes a lot of sense for the retailer, there are some odd items on the list of things to come.

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