This post was part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst of 2007. Voting has now closed and readers have chosen Sanjaya Malakar as the most shameless attempt to cash in on the proverbial 15 minutes of fame. Be sure to let us know in the comments if you are pleased with this result.

When Andy Warhol observed nearly 40 years ago that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes," the man wasn't kidding. While the toe-headed artist couldn't have predicted the rise of the internet or reality television in 1968, this pair of media outlets now enables anyone with a webcam and a dream to put themselves on the map for one brief shining moment (or even several). Below are some of the folks we hated to love as they flitted across the pop-culture radar this year.

For about six weeks or so, the main topic of discussion at the nation's water coolers was the hairdo of a mild-mannered 17-year old. Sanjaya Malakar -- a contestant on News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) FOX Network's American Idol -- divided a nation with his questionable talent and his ever-changing coiffure. Howard Stern launched a campaign, the goal of which was to discredit the show with a Sanjaya victory. Sanjaya took it all in stride ... the tongue-lashings from Simon Cowell, the hatred from America's bloggers, the worldwide attention. But underneath it all, he was a sensitive teenaged boy, one who couldn't quite blink back the tears when he was mercifully ousted from the competition. From that point on, the Idol season wasn't the same. I barely remember who won.

I've had a couple of brushes with fame in my day, and my track record isn't the greatest. I met River Phoenix in April 1991, about 2 1/2 years before his drug-related death at the age of 23 (I love the people who ask me if I got to meet him "while he was still alive." Ummm.) I also knew Ben Curtis (the spokesman, not the golfer). As an elementary-school-age boy, the once-and-future face of Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) was a peripheral friend of my brother and the son of my French teacher.

As I said, my celebrity encounters haven't enjoyed particular longevity. While Curtis isn't overdosing outside the Viper Room, he has been part of the wait staff at Tortilla Flats, a Manhattan bar at Washington and 12th, for the past 18 months. Last week, for Halloween, he dressed up as his former alter-ego, Steve the squirrelly "Dude, you're getting a Dell" kid. He says he gets recognized every day, but appreciated a job at which he can always be himself. And if you ask nicely, he may just repeat his famous catchphrase while he delivers your margarita.

Hilton is seeking at least $500,000 in damages and a permanent injunction barring Hallmark from further use of her name, likeness, and catchphrase. She accuses the company of invading her privacy and misappropriating her image.

Yes, it isn't the sex tape that has hurt her privacy. Oh, and what about the innocent people who could have been harmed when Paris drove drunk? What about their rights to privacy/life? No, it's all a Hallmark greeting card.

Paris Hilton is being an idiot with this lawsuit. She's a public figure -- in fact, that's all she is. She's famous for being famous, and has been among the most shameless self-promoters this side of Don King. Given that, she should expect to be satirized, and that's exactly what Hallmark has done.

When Hilton went on Larry King after her release from the slammer, Paris talked about her "new outlook on life," and later mentioned her desire to do some good in the world and devote time to philanthropy.

She appears to be back to her old stunts: feeling sorry for herself as a result of her own self-inflicted celebrity. Hey Paris, get on with the charity work you waxed about, and stop being lame.

Professional blond Paris Hilton has got some deep-pocketed fans in corporate America, including Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Warner Music Group Corp. (NYSE: WMG) and Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), who are hoping that she can pay her debt to society pretty quickly.

Hilton, who was released from jail this morning because of a medical condition, has shrewdly cashed in on her notoriety. She deserves a gold medal for parlaying her 15 minutes of fame into a show-business career. She's responsible for many awful trends including the growth in popularity of small toy-sized dogs and celebrity sex tapes. Her economic impact is undeniable.

Though she's confined to her home for the next 40 days, expect to see quite a bit more of the ditzy heiress America loves to hate.

Comcast's E! cable network is the newest home to The Simple Life. In the latest season of the show that refuses to die, Hilton and her sometimes BFF (best friend forever), Nicole Richie, are camp counselors who, among other things, motivate a group of overweight children to live healthier. No word if binging and purging will be covered.

For reasons best known to CEO Edgar Bronfman, Warner Music is putting out Hilton's album Paris, which is on sale for $19.98. Time Warner's TMZ.com site and other entertainment sites can count on millions of people hitting their pages for the latest gossip on Hliton. By the way, TMZ is reporting that Hilton's problem is emotional, not physical.

I neglected to mention her contribution to literature. Speculation was rampant that Hilton was planning a book about her prison experience, which I guess now is out the window since she didn't actually spend much time in the slammer. Hilton, though, is pretty resourceful and will no doubt pen a sequel to Confessions of an Heiress once she recovers from her ordeal.

Remember that corporate America profits handsomely from pop culture fads, even bad ones.

At Time Warner's annual stockholders meeting last week in Atlanta, the buzz was all about Ted Turner's Garboesque I-vant-to-be-alone speech.

What you may have missed was TWX's new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report.  The report addresses Time Warner's role as good corporate citizen in a variety of areas, including diversity, journalistic integrity, child protection online, content accessibility, consumer privacy, ethics and governance, employee growth and development, public policy, the environment, supply chain management, and philanthropy.

All of that is well and good, but I want to ask: who is going to take responsibility for the Warner Bros./Matt Leblanc vehicle Joey?

[image from CBS News]

• Turner did not stand for re-election to TWX board of directors
• He didn't stay for the video montage in his honor
• He disappeared before former CNN chief Tom Johnson gave a long tribute to him

As if $7 beers, steroid scandals, and terrible haircuts (oh, Johnny Damon, what happened?) weren't enough of a challenge for the beleagured game of baseball to overcome, now there's an even bigger threat to worry about: changes in corporate ownership.

The Atlanta Braves are up on the auction block (as they have been for quite a while), and it looks like Time Warner may finally get out of the big leagues by selling them to Colorado-based Liberty Media Corporation.

Ted Turner had long held a soft spot for the Atlanta Braves, acquiring them three decades ago. When Time Warner merged with Turner Broadcasting System in 1996, it also picked up the Braves. But rather than seeing the Braves as a perk, TWX has long viewed the Braves as an albatross around its neck.

Third baseman Chipper Jones, echoing the sentiments many Braves, is worried about the corporate switch-up pitch. "I don't know what [Liberty Media's] intentions are as far as salary structure, but the bottom line is: They're from out of town."

If TWX can sell the Braves, will it finally get back on base?

Former Latin students of the world:

Salvete! I have good news!

No, your Latin teacher didn't actually give herself a lethal paper cut on your shoddy translation of Virgil's Aeneid. And, no, your local school board didn't finally decide that Latin was, in fact, "dead enough" to give up on trying to teach it.

But it's almost as good. Earlier today, Warner Bros. movie studio, a unit of Time Warner, announced plans to remake the old Latin class stand-by Clash of the Titans. The original feature film, which follows the codpiece-wearing hero, Perseus, as he fights monsters and Medusa, to save the beautiful Princess Andromeda. Andromeda, in typical princess style, spends most of the movie chained up to a rock, waiting to be rescued by the divinely chartered hero.

Today, Time Warner closed at 17.40, a gain of 0.23%.

But what does a gain of 0.23% mean? Well, allow me to put that in perspective for you:

• François Truffaut's film The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cent Coups) won him the Best Director Award at Cannes in 1959. A 0.23% gain would've forced the Film Festival to praise him instead for The 400.92 Blows.
• In the Biblical story of Noah's flood, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. With a 0.23% gain, it would have rained for 40.092 days and 40.092 nights.
• Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Water would freeze at 32.0736 degrees Fahrenheit with a 0.23% gain.
• In the sport of bike racing, a racer said to be "dying a thousand deaths" when struggling to hang on to the pack.With a 0.23% gain, he would be "dying a thousand-two-point-three deaths."
• “… Baby One More Time” was the Britney Spears megahit of 1998. A 0.23% gain would have changed the hit to “… Baby One-point-zero-zero-two-three More Times.”

That, finance fans, is what a 0.23% gain means.

TNT's is about to drop yet another original drama series on us. It's called Saved, and AOL products will be integrated into the actual show.

Saved will air Mondays at 10 p.m. starting June 12. The series launches with a commercial-free premiere episode, sponsored by Quizno's and Dodge.

"Our integration with both Saved and [the TNT series] The Closer -- an established hit -- allows us to tap into new audiences and broaden our reach in a unique way," says Richard Taylor, senior vice president of brand marketing for AOL. "We can showcase the value of AOL within the actual storyline, making it relevant to the characters' lives."

According to the press release, Saved focuses on a young, hip, directionless slacker named Wyatt Cole. Cole -- played by Tom Everett Scott (Boiler Room, That Thing You Do) -- kicks around Portland, Oregon, trying to figure out what to do with his life and struggling to live in the shadow of his high-achieving parents.

The hook? He's a paramedic.

The catchphrase? "By saving other people's lives, he will be able to save his own."

I can only imagine how this one is going to work...

SCENE: Burnside Bridge, Downtown Portland. Single-car auto accident. Cole is applying a tourniquet.

Cole: "I can't deal with all these pressures. They've been with me ever since childhood. I mean if only they'd placed PARENTAL CONTROLS on their expectations of me --"

Auto accident victim [suddenly coming back to consciousness]: "You mean like the PARENTAL CONTROLS on AOL?!"

Other news from the Milken Conference: AOL Chairman and Chief Exec Jonathan Miller let the cat out of the bag that AOL is considering an online model that makes content -- such as television reruns from Time Warner sister company Warner Bros. -- available for an extended period to let the audience accumulate.

While you may think of Warner Bros. as that benign force that brought us ER, Friends, and The O.C., don't forget that we also owe Warner Bros. for such made-for-TV movies as Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!  and Terror in the Mall, as well as the sitcom Full House.

As for prospects of looking deep into my computer monitor and seeing Bob Saget reprise his Full House role as cherubic widower Danny Tanner -- something I thought I'd left, along with my "Members Only" jackets and Thriller cassette, safely in the 1980's -- well, Minesweeper is looking better and better...

The Big Three come together to discuss the global balance of power. The Yalta Conference?

No, the Milken Institute's 9th Annual Global Conference. Yesterday in Beverly Hills, media men from News Corp, AOL, and Walt Disney came together to powwow.

But you could certainly be forgiven for confusing the two. That's why I'm offering you, dear readers, a quick primer to keep these things straight:

The Yalta Conference vs. The Milken Institute: Which is Doper?

Players:

Yalta Conference: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, USA; Joseph Stalin, USSR; Winston Churchill, United Kingdom

Milken Institute: Jonathan Miller, AOL Chairman and Chief Executive; Robert Iger, Walt Disney Chief Executive; Peter Chernin, News Corp President and COO

Advantage: Yalta Conference

Location:

Yalta Conference: Yalta, a city in Ukraine, on the north coast of the Black Sea, 1945

Milken Institute: Beverly Hills, home of swimming pools, movie stars, and nip-and-tuck procedures

Advantage: Milken Institute