But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s an interview I did with Activision Chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick about the state of the gaming business.

The video of the interview is in three parts.

It’s a good week to focus on the gaming industry since Electronic Arts (ERTS) abandoned its hostile acquisition bid for Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) over the weekend.

EA’s effort was motivated, in part, by Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s “World of Warcraft,” one the most popular multi-player games.

The merger has made Activision (AVTI), with its own well-known franchises–especially the hugely popular “Guitar Hero,” which debuted version IV at D6–one of the gaming industry’s largest companies.

In this first video, Kotick talks about the merger with Vivendi–which aims to inject social gaming DNA into Activision–the popularity of Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox; better graphical, storytelling and character development in games; gaming on social networks; business models in the industry; and the EA attempt to acquire Take-Two.

Except JibJab actually asked for and got permission from Joel for the use of the song for its parody. (Props for that, I say!)

Techwise, the review of 2007 includes, the Wii, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, SuperPokes and his Digital Holiness Steve Jobs of Apple and the instrument of his glory, the iPhone.

In any case, we still love “Bubble,” but here is the JibJab’s offering, which was shown on the still-writerless “Tonight Show” last night on its first night back after the writers’ strike shut it down. It is the 11th time that the Venice, Calif.-based online video-maker has appeared on the show.

And we like her 25% more now, after seeing the new pictures she took for Wired’s latest issue, as well as a particularly sassy interview she did with the magazine.

The homemaking empress is on the cover of Wired, pictured here making a Wii-shaped cake. It looks delicious, but apparently is not from these recipe instructions that leave out the baking soda for architectural reasons.

And another picture here by Jill Greenberg has her pruning a robot hedge, along with this interview with Mark Frauenfelder on her gadget-freak status.

That’s been easy to see for many years. I ran into her first more than a decade ago at a Microsoft party at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and she has shown up at a variety of Silicon Valley events from time to time.

In addition, Stewart has attended the D conference for the past two years, first accompanying Martha Stewart Omnimedia CEO Susan Lyne, who appeared onstage at D4. But I was surprised to observe that she has actually been one of the few attendees who has sat through all of the sessions from start to finish.

She even managed to fire off a very funny but pointed series of questions at D4 to Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer about the nest of wires current gadgets require to operate. Here she is pictured grilling Stringer and also showing one of D’s teen panelists how to properly fold a T-shirt.

In the current interview with Wired, Stewart makes some other salient points, especially about quality. “Whether you’re a programmer or a seamstress, it’s all about new techniques, simplifying old techniques and consolidating steps,” she said. “Making things go faster–but not worse. Better.”

She also jokingly blames the end of her marriage on the Walkman, which she calls the “Rudeman,” and decries using email over talking, although she seems pretty addicted to her BlackBerry from what I have seen (to be fair, so am I).

And Stewart is also apparently working on “Marthapedia,” which is her take on the user-contributed Wikipedia project. Of course, it being Martha, she will be editing user content.

“It won’t be as freewheeling as Wikipedia,” she said. “Because a lot of this–you have to really monitor it.”

And that is a good thing.

Today, the folks from Hillcrest Labs visited me at my home to show off their latest version of what they call an “operating system for the television,” which they had first shown off as a demo at the D3 in May 2005. The Rockville, Md.-based company is one of many trying to reinvent the television navigation experience, complete with a remote control that is a round, motion-controlled device called the “Loop,” pictured here (and you can also see the pictures and video of the Hillcrest demo at D3 here).

Their visually based navigation system, which swoops in and out like a helicopter, is an attempt to free the consumer from the onerous and frustrating grid system that has used up too many minutes of consumers’ life. The centerpiece is obviously the Loop, which is moved about in the air somewhat like a mouse on a desktop and with only a few buttons and scroll wheel. It is certainly a welcome change from other remotes, most of which require you to have a degree in astrophysics to understand properly. I will be interviewing Hillcrest CEO Dan Simpkins again with others at a panel at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s annual show next Monday afternoon in Las Vegas, called “Everything I Need to Know I Learned from the iPod: Defining the Consumer Experience.”

There and in this column, I will be particularly focused on the ongoing issue of making television more interactive. It has been a minor obsession of mine, since I sat in on the pitch meeting the founders of TiVo did before venture capitalists back in 1997. At the time, after a day of sitting through a series of inane dot-com ideas, I was thrilled when this groundbreaking concept of control of the television experience was offered, even if TiVo’s business success has not been as profound.

That feels like an eon and a lot of false starts ago (oh, I had and then didn’t have WebTV). But, perhaps because consumers are finally comfortable watching video on the Web, it seems like the idea of truly incorporating these ideas may have finally come. TiVo has recently unveiled cool new abilities to put personal and Web videos on the television, big players like Apple and Microsoft are deep into the game with major offerings (after years of efforts) and small outfits like Slingbox (which allows you to “sling” content to a myriad of devices) are gaining traction. And, of course, despite the problems with its straps coming undone and minor mayhem following, consumer enthusiasm for the Nintendo Wii system is part of the same trend.

“This is about consumer choice and simplicity,” said Hillcrest’s Simpkins to me today. As it always has been.