According to a source, American Idol top dog Nigel Lythgoe wants Mr. President to come on the show to perform the full song with the original singer, Mr. Al Green.

Nigel actually recently tweeted about the subject.

@BarackObama we loved your vocal performance so much we’d love to invite you on to #AmericanIdolthis Season for a duet with Al Green.

— Nigel Lythgoe (@dizzyfeet) January 30, 2012

No, that’s not a typo… that’s actually his name – Phillip Phillips.

The Albany, GA native performed an over-the-top version of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” that didn’t really win over the judges. Randy asked him to pick up his guitar and play something else. He began to play a stripped-down cover of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, and it was instantly obvious to the three judges that he was the real deal, and he was on his way to Hollywood.

If you do a YouTube search for Phillip Phillips, you’ll see several other songs from him including covers of Eminem, Lil’ Wayne, and Usher among others. You can check out some of the videos for yourself below.

Eminem – Lose Yourself

Lil’ Wayne – Lollipop

Usher – Nice & Slow

Do you think Phillip has what it takes to win American Idol season 11? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.

But did Scotty McCreery’s relative unpopularity on Twitter lead directly to his win?

According to the yap.TV app, runner-up Lauren Alaina was doomed from the start. The social media/Television linking application for the iPhone has been tracking what they call the “yap.Tv Pulse.” They have been following Twitter conversations about the American Idol contestants during the performance shows and keeping tracking of positive, negative and neutral mentions.

On their blog, they state that they “have seen a consistent chasm between Twitter sentiment of show fans and the actual voting results.” This “chasm” basically amounts to a “Twitter curse,” if you will, that dooms the contestant that creates the most buzz on Twitter.

During the last month of American Idol competition, the curse has hit a prefect 4 for 4, accurately predicting the booting of the contestant with the most Twitter conversation surrounding them. And yap.TV’s pulse results from Tuesday’s performance show accurately predicted that Scotty McCreery would win, based on his lower Twitter chatter.

Lauren Alaina had more negative comments as well as neutral comments on Twitter. The two contestants had nearly equal positive sentiments.

“We had originally thought that real user sentiment would track fairly closely to real voting results, but clearly there exists a discrepancy,” says yap.TV.

And conventional wisdom would say that the more buzz about you, the more likely you are to receive votes. Is it possible that people spent too much time Tweeting about Lauren to vote for her? Could the demographic that regularly votes on American Idol not quite match up with the Twitter user demographic?

Popularity seems an accurate predictor when it comes to Facebook, as “like” analyzing startup Likester accurately predicted Scotty’s win based on his edge in Facebook likes. Scotty has almost 400,000 likes, more than double that of Lauren Alaina.

Are you happy with the way the season played out? Is Scotty a deserving champion? Will he have success moving forward? Tell us what you think.

The final results show isn’t until tonight, but the news about the American Idol Winner may have already leaked.

A top story on Drudge Report says, “Un-cool, un-hip, country-fried singer wins American Idol.” Drudge quotes a source that says Scotty took almost double the amount of votes over runner-up Lauren Alaina. The story is still developing.

If these sources are indeed correct, has America made the right decision? Or is Scotty, as the headline suggest, un-cool, un-hip and country fried? If country music isn’t your thing, this finale was not for you. The finale sing-off last night was decidedly all country as the two contestants covered the likes of George Strait and Pam Tillis.

What do the folks over at Likester think? The trend-analyzing startup has been running Likester Idol, crunching the Facebook “like” numbers each week to predict the elimination results. Last week they predicted the elimination of Haley Reinhart and were proven correct.

After last night’s performances, Likester analyzed the numbers and posted their prediction early this morning. And their prediction is in line with the Drudge report, as they deem Scotty the likely winner.

Likester notes that Scotty grabbed over twice the total Facebook likes as Lauren. They also give her props for her performances last night but lament that she never really had a chance.

WebProNews recently talked to Likester President Kevin McCarthy about analyzing trends within Facebook data.

As of this morning, it looks like it might be a landslide for Scotty McCreery. Do you think he will win? Should he win?

Also, how do you feel about the all-country finale?  If it’s not your cup of tea, who do you think should have been in the final pairing?

Want to know who’s going to stay and who’s going to go on tonight’s American Idol results show? Likester is giving you their predictions, announced today at 3 pm EST.

Likester thinks that Haley Reinhart is going to get the boot tonight, meaning that the final two will be Scott McCreery and Lauren Alaina. Here’s what Likester says about Haley:

Despite the author of this post personally liking her, we think her time as come. It’s been a great run, Hayley, I hope the numbers are lying! Best of luck tonight.

The startup uses Facebook likes to analyze trends in pages, show users their ‘like” statistics as well as those of their friends, and to see what pages are popular in any given geographic area.

Likester has been running the service called “Likester Idol” where they use fluctuations in Facebook likes of Idol contestants in order to predict the outcome. Likester analyzes Facebook likes before and after contestants’ performances on Idol and from that they can see how many new fans were gained by the performance. Using that data from the Wednesday night’s performances, they attempt to predict Thursday night’s results show.

So how have they done? Pretty well, as of late. However, they did miss a prediction last week, as they predicted the elimination of Lauren Alaina and the safety of James Durbin. Durbin was the one ultimately eliminated.

They also say that they predict Scott to win the whole season. He has the most likes on Facebook overall at just over 312,000.

WebProNews recently talked to Kevin McCarthy, founder and President of Likester. In that interview, he said that their goal is to “help users understand the things that they’re already liking and, potentially, things that they could like.”

He added, “I think we’ve done a really good job of putting the data out there. Our challenge is going to be about surfacing the good stuff for the users, so that they don’t have to do all this searching.”

Is Likester right? Who do you think will go home? Is it the same as who should go home?

Who do you think should win American Idol? Tell us your vote in the comments.

Although many of us have likely made predictions about whom we think should go home each Thursday night, a new startup prides itself in making Idol predictions based on actual data. The new service is called Likester, and the data is based on Facebook “likes.”

Likester Idol goes through Facebook and analyzes the “like” data of each contestant both before and after the Wednesday night show. From this, they are able to determine how many new fans, or “likes,” the contestants have gained based on their performances. On Thursday around noon PST, Likester makes their predictions.

Last week, they predicted that Jacob Lusk would be sent home, which proved to be correct. Will they be right again tonight? Check back here for frequent updates.

It’s an interesting concept, isn’t it? Not only is Likester fun for entertainment purposes such as Likester Idol, but it is also useful in other areas. Likester serves as a search database for Facebook “likes.” In addition, it categorizes the “like” data in several ways to show users all the Facebook pages that they have liked in the past, the pages that their friends like, the pages that are currently trending, and the pages that are  “liked” the most in any given area.

Likester is also experimenting with affinity and anti affinity data. This data would make recommendations to users based user trends. For example, if you “like” Pepsi, Likester would suggest a list of items to you that others that “like” Pepsi also “like.” The anti affinity aspect would show items that users didn’t “like.”

“Our goal is to help users understand the things that they’re already liking and, potentially, things that they could like,” said Kevin McCarthy, the Founder and President of Likester.

Likester’s database grew to 2.5 million items in just a week’s time, which means that it is collecting a lot of rich data. McCarthy told us that brands are also finding the data very useful for their local marketing efforts.

“I think we’ve done a really good job of putting the data out there. Our challenge is going to be about surfacing the good stuff for the users, so that they don’t have to do all this searching,” he said.

Aside from the business and entertainment uses, we can also see Likester playing an important role in the upcoming elections in 2012.

How much of an impact do you think Facebook “likes” will play in the elections next year?

Update: According to this week’s Facebook “like” data, Likester predicts that Lauren Alaina will be going home tonight. Will this prediction come true? We’ll find out tonight…

Update 2: It appears that the Facebook “like” data wasn’t as telling this week – Likester predicted Lauren to be the one going home and, ironically, James Durbin, who has 129,137 “likes” on Facebook, was the one America voted off the show. Does this mean that the “like” metric isn’t as influential as we originally thought?

Starting today and ending October 6, people between the ages of 15 and 28 can submit audition videos for the show at MySpace.com/americanidol.

"American Idol has established itself as the largest stage to find and elevate new artists," said Courtney Holt, MySpace Music President. “Marrying this year’s auditions with MySpace, a platform renowned for discovering new talent, allows the show to broaden its reach online in the search for Season 10 hopefuls."

There is an approved list of songs that contestants con choose from for their auditions. Videos are limited to 40 seconds in length, and are limited to one per person. The auditions will be judged "in a similar fashion to the live audition" according to the announcement. 

I’m guessing auditions can go viral on the web faster than ever as a result of this news. 

Pants On The Ground has been viewed well over 2 million times on YouTube and Platt has even performed his “hit song” on the morning talk show “The View”.

But, is all the publicity Platt receiving justified? Let us know what you think.

Michigan based hip-hop duo, the Green Brothers, have posted a video on YouTube entitled "Back Pockets On The Floor"  that has a striking resemblance to Platt’s viral hit. The Green Brothers song was copyrighted and recorded in 1996, 14 years before Platt graced the audition stage of American Idol. 

The following description accompanies the video on YouTube…

This is in regards to the General Larry Platt "Pants on The Ground". His song is a take off of the Green Brothers song " Back Pockets On The Floor’. Back Pockets On The Floor was written by G. Green and was copyrighted and recorded by the Green Brothers in 1996. The General’s song have the same intent, idea and in part the same message. YOU BE THE JUDGE AMERICA!!

It should be noted Gerald Green, a member of the hip-hop duo, holds no grudge against Platt and even "wishes him well".

So, what do you think: Did Larry Platt rip-off "Back Pockets On The Floor"? Tell us what you think.

Platt’s song pretty much defies words – or at least words beyond "pants on the ground," which represent about 90 percent of the lyrics.  It goes after folks who wear their pants too low and their hats sideways, but, well, we’ve embedded a clip below so that you just view the spectacle for yourself.  (Stay tuned for a little break dancing after Platt gets warmed up). 

This one clip’s already received almost 120,000 views.  The phrase "pants on the ground" has become a trending topic on Twitter, too.

Barring some apocalyptic event that leaves just him and the judges alive, Platt won’t win American Idol, of course, but the show appears positioned to get plenty of attention thanks to his vocal efforts just the same.

Looking back at the beginning of the season, the two finalists really did come from nowhere. Back in February, searchers pegged Danny Gokey and Alexis Grace as would-be finalists. While Gokey almost made it, it came down to the acoustic soul of Kris Allen and screamqueen Adam Lambert.

And it looks like everybody got it wrong, from the Internet to the judges. Lambert was clearly favored by the judges, even on occasions when he stepped far to the left of the right pitch. After a Allen’s tame duet early in the show with Keith Urban, Lambert got to be the new front man for KISS in full makeup—sounds like even the producers had favorites.

Hitwise reports searches for Lambert outnumbered Allen by five to one.

Biz360, analyzing social media data, also picked Lambert to win.

So did BettorsWorld, the first time they’ve been wrong—Allen beat the bookies!

Did anybody guess it right? Well, we did find one press release from ymarketing. Whatever they did—which they say was through a combined analysis of search and social media—they did it right. Ymarketing predicted Allen as the winner by looking at Facebook Lexicon, Google Trends, Google Insights, Compete, YouTube, and Twitter, as well as some unnamed data sources.