‘Scotty is in it to WIN it!’ – this is a phrase that American Idol fans (myself included) have heard for the past four months when Randy’s premonition finally came true as 29.3 million people enjoyed a spectacle of performances on last season’s American Idol. As a country music fan, I would have been happy with either of two finalists, but as an avid American Idol fan, the lack of enthusiasm I was feeling about the show’s winner had me concerned.
Then I realized something that happened to me early on in the season that was responsible for my waning level of excitement.
After an emotional episode where the judges saved Casey Abrams from elimination, I wanted to ensure that Casey, one of my early favorites, was ‘safe’ for a couple more weeks. I pulled out my iPhone to search for the American Idol application I was sure would be there. I found something, all right.
Was it an easy to use, intuitive voting application that allowed me to quickly allocate my precious votes to the contestant of my choosing? Nope. What I found were apps for quizzes, karaoke, golden tickets and ringtones. Oh, joy. For a TV show that received over 750,000,000 votes this past season, it shocked me to see that there was nothing in place to capture even more votes from a mobile audience. Sure, they have a mobile version of their website which imitates how a mobile application functions, but it still didn’t let me cast my precious votes.
This seems like a missed opportunity if I’ve ever seen one. People own over 60 million iPhones worldwide and Google’s Android OS has 160,000 activations daily. If even half of these iPhone owners voted one time with their 50 allocated votes, American Idol would more than double the number of votes received.
The current lull in excitement is a great time for creating an amazing app that will engage fans before the next season begins and continue to encourage interaction throughout. How? Beyond giving users the basic ability to vote for their favorites, this app could include:
- Judge’s comments – These sound bites are always popular for use in promotional commercials and on YouTube. This app could give users exclusive access to these sound bites for sharing with friends and commenting on.
- Fan predictions – This would be a great opportunity for increased fan engagement even before the season starts and throughout the season. Fans could create predicted lineups, earn points for being correct in their predictions, and even have a chance to win prizes for having a perfect score.
- Idol calendar - A listing of idol events, birthdays, and concert dates would allow fans to keep updated on their favorites and increase interaction outside of the show.
- Concert ticket sales – This feature could be a huge moneymaker for the application. Incorporating this functionality into the app lets fans get engaged with the contestants and make plans to see them live without ever leaving the application.
In addition to these exciting features, incorporating their news feed, contestant profiles and video clips, and an option to download music straight to your phone would help this application to take off.
Although I’ve hammered American Idol on ways they can improve their digital presence, it in no way deters me from still being a devoted viewing fan and I’m already looking forward to Season 11 early next year. Let’s just hope they develop a mobile application in the meantime and I’ll be all set.
Would you use an app like this from American Idol? What other ideas do you have that it could include?
