We’re sure you’ve either seen or heard about “General” Larry Platt’s American Idol audition, Pants On The Ground. Not sure how you could’ve missed it, as it’s been everywhere… it was even sung by the Minnesota Vikings after they defeated the Dallas Cowboys during the NFL playoffs.

American Idol may be only two episodes into its ninth season, but the show already has a big online hit on its hands.  63-year-old Larry Platt performed a self-written song called "Pants on the Ground" last night, and hundreds of thousands of people are talking about his energetic routine today.

Every year one can take a quick a look at Internet activity and predict who’s going to win American Idol. It totally worked last year, with David vs. David, and years before that. This year, though the Internet bet wrong.

UPDATE: Fox and the American Idol producers released a joint statement saying, "(We) are absolutely certain that the results of this competition are fair, accurate and verified … Kris Allen is, without a doubt, the American Idol. We have an independent third-party monitoring procedure in place to ensure the integrity of the voting process. In no way did any individuals unfairly influence the outcome of the competition."

All day on Google Trends, the list of top trending search terms has carried several variations of keyword phrases related to Adam Lambert’s performance of a Donnie Darko soundtrack version of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World.”

Dave Desvousges has skills. Not nunchuk skills or bow hunting skills (he might, I don’t know) but mad SEO skills and a ton of entrepreneurial spirit. Turns out, he’s also the manager and agent for “international superstar” Renaldo Lapuz.

Who?

If you haven’t heard of Katrina Darrell yet, she’s probably incredibly disappointed, and so are her, ahem, handlers. After all, her name is currently at the top of Google Hot Trends’ top search gainer list. She’s also known as “bikini girl,” in case you didn’t catch her name for all the, well, distraction.

Since "American Idol" for the first time has made downloads of performers songs available on iTunes, winner, David Cook has enjoyed great success.

Cook’s "The Time of My Life," has been downloaded 236,000 times, reaching the number 1 spot on Billboard’s Hot Digital Songs chart and reaching the number three position on the Billboard Hot 100.

If Internet buzz is any indication of the future—and it’s not, mind you, unless Ron Paul really will get the Republican nomination—David Cook is your next American Idol. According to search metrics and questionable phone measurements, Cook edged out David Archuleta by the slimmest margin in Idol history.

American Idol helped boost visits to Fox Broadcasting’s Web site, doubling traffic in January compared with December.

Fox and Apple have jointly launched an iTunes store for American Idol performances, in case you thought Fox was finished co-branding and cross-promoting (milking) the Other-Super Bowl*.

When people talked about their favorite TV shows online, Jason Lee’s sitcom rated first in Nielsen’s top ten list.

If the number of searches for the remaining American Idol finalists is any indication, Blake Lewis is going to upset many a Jordin Sparks fan.

Hitwise has released their list of the top 10 most visited Television Web sites for the week ending April 28, 2007.

Fox’s popular American Idol received the highest percentage of visits to their site with 32.96 percent. This was followed by NBC’s Deal or No Deal Web site, which received the second largest percentage of U.S. visits grabbing 12.33 percent.

Okay, no boob jokes. And we’re not going to talk about a certain American Idol hopeful that overstayed her welcome just because a bunch of randy teenagers kept voting for her after naughty (and weird) pics surfaced on the Web. Absolutely not. We are, however going to talk about Kellie Pickler’s blue dress – and what was in it.

Why are we talking about Kellie Pickler? Because Friday’s afternoons are for funny, fluffy softball search stories.

The background:

The competition on American Idol is just starting to warm up, but the real heat may not coming from the performances. As evidenced in last week’s Zeitgeist, Google searchers have American Idol contestant Antonella Barba on the brain, and I daresay it isn’t because of her singing voice.

You know, I was just thinking: teenage girls don’t talk enough. We need an online space just for them where they’ll feel comfortable speaking their mindsoh wait, here’s one. American Idol has added a cheer section to its website where fans can blog, dish and trash the contestants. So awesome! Anybody got a scrunchie?