Who Is the Blogosphere's Next American Idol?

Who Is the Blogosphere's Next American Idol?

BuzzLogic Reveals the Influential Bloggers' Choice

SAN FRANCISCO, May 20 /PRNewswire/ -- On the eve of the 2008 Idol coronation, BuzzLogic is releasing the season's influencer "buzz," to highlight how contestants fared with blogosphere opinion leaders. This season of American Idol has been difficult to predict, and the David vs. David showdown has given fans and bloggers much to discuss.

And the winner is ...

Since the top three contestants were determined the week of April 21, influential blogs in aggregate have pegged David Archuleta to take home this year's title.

However, it took until week six for influencers to warm up to David Archuleta, as post-for-post he generated the least amount of buzz prior to the six week mark. On the other hand, influential blogs like TV Squad and Bookmaker pegged David Cook as a "dark horse" favorite from the start. In the final vote, bloggers note that Archuleta has the all-powerful teen vote (not to mention many invites to the prom), while Cook's got the older "cougar" crowd (as noted by several bloggers) on his side.

Here's what else the influencers had to say about this season:

Top Twelve Predictions

While David Archuleta may have flown under the radar early, some of the more charismatic personalities -- Brooke White, Michael Johns, and his rival for the title, David Cook -- made bigger first impressions among the influencers. In fact, Brooke White was the influential bloggers' early pick to win the title and David Hernandez was the influential bloggers hands-down pick to be the first to go.

-- Out of all the negative chatter surrounding the top twelve, the one post that generated the most attention was from VotefortheWorst.com -- calling for David Hernandez's exit.

The Influencers Knew Syesha Would Make it Far, but What About Carly?

Influential bloggers liked Syesha Mercado from the start, noting her talent when judges and voters consistently put her in the bottom three. Syesha had the second least number of blogs discussing her performances, but these passionate bloggers and fans posted an average of three times as much compared to other contestants -- interestingly, Syesha ended up being the last female standing. Blogger love couldn't save Carly Smithson however. Blogger buzz around her "Jesus Chris Superstar" performance was positive, but the singer got the boot from voters that same week.

-- After a poor performance on April 7, influential blog Rickey.org started a campaign to save Carly from an early departure.

The Influencers Turned on Brooke White

On April 1st, Brooke White was the female contestant with the highest number of influential blog posts, 3824, and considered -- by both bloggers and voters it seemed -- a front-runner to win. Following her performance of Mariah Carey's "Hero," the number of posts about Brooke continued to escalate, but the tone turned sour. As of April 21, she was the bloggers' collective pick to go. Two weeks later, Brooke was voted off.

Michael Johns' Exit Upset Fans and Set the Blogosphere on Fire

The week of March 26, after his rendition of Queen's "We Are the Champions," Michael Johns went from being the hands-down fan favorite to being voted off two weeks later. Johns generated over 1,000 influential posts after his departure, many lamenting the show's overall loss of sex appeal and most outraged that a much less impressive, Kristy Lee Cook, remained.

-- TMZ.com generated the most influential post around Michael Johns discussing the ironic fact that he was spotted singing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" to his mom during a karaoke stint.

Buzz Wasn't Always Around Performances

Poor Paula Abdul -- her flubs made more news than her first music video in 15 years. She set the blogosphere afire by judging Jason Castro's Neil Diamond performance, mistakenly judging two songs when he only sang one.

-- Hollywood Gossip's April 30 post reporting that she had at least one martini at lunch that day was the most influential post pertaining to the judge.

What About American Idol?

The most influential blog post on the topic of American Idol was from the television show's official blog on March 12, 2008, http://www.americanidol.com/, which outlined the top 24 contestants and linked to 119 other sites. While each contestant had some unique influencers writing about them in the blogosphere, a number of commonly influential blogs across the board were TVSquad, the official American Idol blog, Rickey.org, GirlsTalkinSmack.com, MJsbigblog.com, HollywoodGossip and Defamer.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Valerie Combs, director of influencer relations at
BuzzLogic, is available to discuss BuzzLogic's ongoing analysis of American
Idol as well as the projected winner. To speak with Valerie or for more
information on BuzzLogic, please contact: Jen Conway, 978.463.0289,
Jennifer@dottedlinecomm.com To read BuzzLogic's full week by week analysis of
American Idol, go to the BUZZBlog.
First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: BuzzLogic

CONTACT: Jen Conway, +1-978-463-0289, Jennifer@dottedlinecomm.com, for
BuzzLogic

Web site:

http://www.americanidol.com/

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