DialIdol

DialIdol

Screen shot of DialIdol software
Original author(s) James Hellriegel Jr.
Stable release v3.5.0.0
Operating system Windows ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista
Website http://www.dialidol.com

DialIdol is both the name of a computer program for Microsoft Windows and its associated website that tracks voting trends for American Idol contestants. The program allows users to automatically vote for the American Idol contestants of their choice using their PC's modem. The program then reports back to the main website, which keeps track of the results based on the percentage of calls for each contestant that result in a busy signal. DialIdol assumes that more busy signals means more callers are attempting to vote for that contestant.[1] DialIdol was created during the fourth season of American Idol and was released to the public at the start of the fifth season.

Users can choose to vote equally for their chosen contestants, choose to keep certain contestants "safe" (by voting for their chosen contestant who is ranked the lowest), or choose to keep certain contestants "unsafe" (by voting for the lowest-ranked contestant who is not on their list).

In addition to American Idol, the software may also be used to vote for, as well as track voting trends for, Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, and The X Factor. In 2006, DialIdol also supported Celebrity Duets and Canadian Idol. DialIdol did not support So You Think You Can Dance season 8.

Notable Predictions

Season 4 Predictions

Season 5 Predictions

Season 6 predictions

Season 7 predictions

Season 8 predictions

Season 9 predictions

Season 10 predictions

Season 11 predictions

Season 12 predictions

Season 13 predictions

Controversy

Legal challenge

In March 2006, DialIdol received a "cease and desist" order from Fox, who alleged copyright infringement. According to the site's creator, Jim Hellriegel, Fox's lawyers also told him that his site was acting as a potential "spoiler," as they claimed it posted results. The site was taken down temporarily. After consulting with lawyers and determining that what they were doing was legal, the Web site, with a redesigned logo and other cosmetic changes, was put back online.[2]

Contestant rankings

Because DialIdol does not take text messages into account, and because of other problems with measuring busy signals, there exists a margin of error for each contestant's score. Because of this, often 50% or more of the contestants are predicted to be in danger of being voted off, or DialIdol does not make any prediction, as was the case for the final 3 of Season 6 (when Melinda Doolittle was eliminated) and the finale of Season 8 (when Kris Allen won).[1] Also, DialIdol has been criticized for its impreciseness in ranking the contestants; however, the program's creator has asserted that DialIdol "was never designed to get the results slot for slot right", and stresses that DialIdol is "for entertainment purposes only".[3]

Power dialing

According to the American Idol producers, monitors are in place to identify and remove "power dialers," which use technical enhancements to their phone systems to allow for multiple votes.[4] DialIdol is not a power dialer, according to Fox spokeswoman Jennifer Sprague. "Using a modem dialer is not the same as ‘power dialing.' A person manually using a redial button on a standard telephone can generate as many call attempts as a modem dialer.”[1]

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, June 05, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.