LJ Idol Presents:

If you haven't seen it, the Sign-Up Sheet is up!  http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/861191.html
So, if you want to take part in the LJ IDOL: Friends and Rivals mini-season, you should get over there and sign up!

Looking at my stat sheet, there are 30 spots filled right now. Which means that after a few hours of being up, there are 70 spots remaining!

(A few of those spots are unfilled +1s)

7 of those people, so far, have actually completed all three steps! Thanks to those people! The rest of you, get on it!! :)

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So far everyone has remembered this - but for those who don't know, if you are playing under another name (or have more than one LJ account - please let me know! Even if you think I already know, make sure I know! :D)

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I just went back to the "entry count" and added that last week of the special kid's season - which means we are at 19,988 entries.   Which means we are *12 entries away* from having generated 20,000 pieces of new content!   It will be interesting to see who gets to post the 20,000th entry during Week 1!!! :D

We are halfway through our first season of Idol Minor!

I hope everyone is having fun - and letting other people know about what's going on here. Sure, it's taking place in Idol proper. But that doesn't always mean folks are paying attention.

I think our young talent have a lot to be proud of with their creations and I'd love more people to see them!

Remember to vote for your favorites: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/856084.html

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Entry count: 19,968. 32 entries to go until we hit 20,000! I'm not sure it will happen during Idol Minor, but it definitely will during the mini-season.

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What did you do during your extended weekend?

It's an "Open Topic" week - so when better to have a Home Game thread?!

Have fun, and link your entries back to this thread when you are done!


(For those playing along with the Entry Count: It's now at 19,940. 60 more entries to go in order to hit 20,000!)

If you have ever thought "Hey, I should Home Game for LJ Idol!" - this is the perfect time!

Why?

Because we are near the end of the season, and our current "Entries created for LJ Idol" stands at 19,915 - only 85 entries to go until we are celebrating our 20,000th!!

So get in on the action!

This week's topic is Gambler's Fallacy

Just link your entry here!

Perhaps we should start doing this in the early weeks of Idol instead of having "byes": http://www.freep.com/story/life/2015/01/20/birthday-party-show-fee/22040807/

Seriously though - sending a bill for a kid not showing up to a birthday party seems a good way of never having kids want to show up to your parties again! Unless of course, the parent is trying to stop having to organize them in the future and/or kill their child's social life in general. In which case - well played!!

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Speaking of "Well Played", there was somethings that happened last night that you may have missed:

Results from Week 33: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/826108.html
The new Topic: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/826357.html
The new Quick Fire: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/826465.html
and, of course, the new Work Room: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/826776.html

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Congratulations to *THE TOP 15*!

Only 5 contestants remaining until we have the Top 10. Your odds of making it to that point are good... or are they? *insert cackling here*

"By the Numbers" - because I know there are definitely some folks here that enjoy an assortment of facts:


I've tried something a little different the last couple weeks when it comes to voting. I've been trying to raise some awareness of the fantastic writing that is happening here.

The first week I tried advertising through Livejournal itself. Virtually no response and there isn't really a report to measure the numbers.

So the following week(s) I've gone with Facebook, to see what the difference was.

Per Facebook, the voting post reached the "eyes" of 1,244 people. I use quotes because that just means that they scrolled past it while they were on their phone or computer. Of those people, *26* of them clicked through to the link.

Of those, 3 of them are now following LJ Idol on FB.

How many of them actually voted? There were a total of *6* votes from Facebook, and most of those were names that I'd seen before. (Note: none of the "new followers" actually voted)

(Note: There were also 2 votes from Google+ and 2 votes from Twitter - in other words, there were 10 votes cast from non-LJ accounts. Out of 137!)

I know that building up a name is something that happens slowly and through repetition. But when I saw that icon on poll say that it had been shared on FB "69 times", I was expecting a bigger bang than that! (It went from 11 normally, to 47 to 69 in the weeks where there has been advertising, which means that the LJ "FB shares" thing might be adding some numbers to the count based on FB's repostings)

The good news in all of that - there seems to be only 2 people (and the second one is a "maybe") who "double voted" (used more than one account), and it didn't impact anything. That's always a concern, which is why I keep an eye on it. (I'll be talking to them later, I'm sure it was an oversight)

Ultimately, what this means is the best form of promotion is still word of mouth. If you love what you are seeing here: TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT IT. Get them to show up and get to read, and support, some really talented new writers!

(Sure, they might originally come just to support you, but if they are reading, they are bound to find some other great folks as well!)

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More numbers, because of the tie, we are now at 51 contestants. So we're hanging on the edge of that Top 50.

Which means this week is *the* last time to use your byes and the last chance for the Power of Veto to be used.

There appear to be 11 people remaining who still have one to use, and one person with two!

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Just went through and updated the "approximate number of LJ Idol entries" figure. These are entries that were created for LJ Idol: 19,639. Not bad. I wonder who is going to end up writing #20,000???