This week's AI results show the unpredictability of
the American public – but more specifically, the AI
voting audience.
Despite being the most consistently great performer,
James received the lowest vote count. Almost 72 million
votes were cast. AI voters are of the karaoke crowd -
which, according to my years of experience, means that
they prefer country or pop music. I would speculate that
most rockers vote once online while the pop and younger
country fans text multiple votes. It would be interesting
to know who would've done best if a one vote per person
system were used as I suspect the top 3 benefited more
from the multiple vote per person system than James. I
think the current system however is more indicative as to
who would have more success selling albums as money is
involved in the text votes – and ones need to have a higher
level of affinity for an artist to part with their money to
purchase CDs by that artist than they would to cast a free vote.
Who will win AI? So far I have to say Steven Tyler and JLo
are neck and neck. JLo got off to a better start with her
well-timed release of ON THE FLOOR and used the AI stage
to market it. Steven came back with a book release which
was announced on AI and proceeded to become #1. With
AI exposure of the video for his solo release, I can only
expect a chart topper for him as well.
So I predict a tie between Steven Tyler and JLo as both are
receiving an enormous amount of publicity which they are
using to market their products – which are turning a bigger
profit than any release of the remaining contestants will.

As an aside, has anyone else been following the lyric contest
for the Coke ad on AI's website?

http://www.soundclick.com/Summeoyo
http://www.ourstage.com/profile/summeoyo1