'American Idol' judges drama upstaging competition

LOS ANGELES: The ratings are down. Randy Jackson is out. Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj are still at it.

All is not well on TV's once dominant "American Idol," despite a shake-up at the beginning of this season that was supposed to rejuvenate the aging Fox talent competition. Instead, the behind-the-scenes-and-sometimes-in-front-of-the-scenes drama continues to cast a shadow over the series, right up to Thursday's coronation of "Idol's" 12th season champion.

Jackson's declaration last week that he was departing the show means producers could plan a proper send-off for the lone remaining original judge this week, much the same way they did for Simon Cowell during the ninth season finale in 2010. However, 'the fates of the other three judges remain uncertain amid reports they're out, too, and Fox and "Idol" producer FremantleMedia aren't commenting.

It's oh-so-familiar territory for the show, whose panel has revolved like an amusement park carousel since the addition of songwriter Kara DioGuardi at the beginning of the eighth season in 2009. The will-they-or-won't-they speculation sparked publicity for years, but many viewers — the ones who are left, anyway — have seemingly grown tired of the guessing games.

"It's a disservice to the talent on the show," said Lyndsey Parker, Yahoo's music editor who writes about "Idol" and other televised singing competitions on the "Reality Rocks" blog. "I'm quite fatigued by all the emphasis on the judges, especially when they step down or aren't asked back or whatever, and the speculation begins about all the potential replacements."

A trio of chart-topping new faces on this season's panel was supposed to breathe new life into "Idol." With reported paychecks of $18 million for Carey, $12 million for Minaj and $6 million for Keith Urban, there hasn't been a return on the investment. The ratings have never been lower for "Idol," which for nine seasons was the most-watched show on TV.

What went wrong? How did "Idol" lose its way? Was it merely a lackluster crop of contestants this season? Their song selections? Or have viewers simply grown weary of searching for yet another superstar since 2002? Maybe they were turned off by that ongoing feud between hip-hop diva Minaj and pop queen Carey, just as much as by some of the contestants?

"When you're on the stage, it does feel pretty awkward," acknowledged Candice Glover, the R&B vocalist who will face off against country singer Kree Harrison on Wednesday. "When it's happening to another contestant, I try not to watch. I don't think it overshadows the performance, but when you're up there, you have to wait for them to finish (the back-and-forth)."

The tone between the pair is far darker than the days when Cowell playfully teased Paula Abdul, and the vitriolic tweets and sensational asides between Minaj and Carey have stood in stark contrast to all the "girl power" up on stage. For the first time, five female singers ascended to the top of the pack, and a woman will win the show's grand prize for the first time since 2007.

It's likely no consolation that over on NBC's "The Voice," which has regularly toppled "Idol" in the ratings this year, drama-free celebrity panelists like Usher, Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green and Shakira actually seem to all get along. Some of them even dueted together last week at a Los Angeles event. It's difficult to imagine Minaj ever laying down a rap alongside Carey.

"I don't think 'Idol' is ever going to get back to its glory days," said Yahoo's Parker. "It's really difficult to retool any show that's been around for this long and make it the No. 1 on TV all over again. That said, I think it could rebound if they cast a diverse set of contestants and judges that have good chemistry. They don't necessarily have to be mega-stars."

The old "Star Search" show originally lasted for 12 years before it fizzled out (ironically, it was resurrected in 2003 after the success of "Idol"). It doesn't seem "Idol" has reached that point just yet. The show is still a huge moneymaker and draws millions of viewers. At its peak in 2003, the "Idol" finale attracted more than 38 million. Last season, more than 21 million watched the conclusion.

Perhaps even more will tune in to this week's finale to see this version of the "Idol" judging panel one last time. (AP)

PTI protests against alleged vote rigging persist countrywide

KARACHI/LAHORE: Demanding a fair reelection in Karachi and NA-122-125 in Lahore, Pakistan Terhreek-e-Insaf (PTI) supporters are holding onto their protest demonstrations against alleged massive vote rigging, Geo News reported.

According to details a large number of PTI cohorts predominantly women converged at Teen Talwar area of Clifton Sunday evening to register their protest against what they called the most outrageous manipulation of votes in the history of Pakistan.

Chanting slogans against the riggers protestors are demanding of the Election Commission of Pakistan to investigate this “PTI mandate theft” without delay. They added that the protest would continue until the ECP took effective action.

They alleged that hundreds of illegal votes were cast at gunpoint at many polling stations.

"The unreasonable holdup in the polling, the late arrival of balloting material, and the harassment the PTI voters were subjected to, are screaming that PTI fell prey to a criminal vote-rigging conspiracy ", said a woman protestor.

"We have not taken to streets for any personal reasons. We are here for a positive change. You cannot restrain a tsunami for too long", said a youth at the protest.

It was also reported later that unknown gunmen opened fired on the protestors injuring at least two people.

In Lahore, a multitude of young PTI stalwarts from various posh areas of the city are protesting at the Ghazi Chowk (Walton), an area of the NA-125. They blocked the main road for all traffic.

PTI loyalists said that according to early unofficial results Imran Khan and Hamid Khan from NA-122 and NA-125 respectively leading with a great margin but later ECP declared them as losers.

According to media reports PTI protesters who were led by Fauzia Kasuri shouted slogans against rigging in NA-125, Hamid Khan Advocate's constituency.

They said initially Hamid emerged as a winner with a lead of 13,000 votes over PML-N's Khwaja Saad Rafiq who was later declared victorious unofficially.

PTI protestors accused PML-N candidate Malik Pervez of blackjacking the returning officers into manipulating voting results to Saad Rafiqe's favour.

Earlier Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Arif Alvi said at least at four polling stations in Defence Housing Authority (DHA) polling did not start for hours.

“PTI supporters fully understand difficulties created to stop them from voting & winning and senior PTI leadership is raising issues at all levels”, he added.

According to sources Alvi was likely to speak at the protest demonstration.

Israr Abbasi, a PTI candidate from Sindh PS-114, said the party would continue to hold sit-ins across the city and the knock doors of the courts for reelections in Karachi.

"We will fight until the last moment, but the others parties left the ground for MQM by withdrawing their candidates," Abbasi said.

PTI chief Imran Khan has alleged that his party had been affected by rigging in Punjab and Sindh provinces. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf will bring out a "white paper" on the alleged rigging so that such practices could be prevented in future, he said.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of amateur Francis Ouimet's stunning victory in the U.S. Open, a performance that helped propel golf into the American mainstream.

The United States Golf Association has chosen to commemorate the occasion with a book, "Great Moments of the U.S. Open," by Robert Williams and Michael Trostel, with a foreword by Jack Nicklaus. Williams is director of the USGA Museum in Far Hills, N.J., while Trostel is senior curator and historian of the museum.

"The 100th anniversary of Ouimet winning was probably the most significant moment in American golf history," Trostel said. "As a 20-year-old amateur he got golf on the front pages of newspapers for the first time. That was the jumping off point for golf in the U.S."

The book contains five chapters (Defining Moments, Perseverance, Underdogs, Comebacks and Dominance) featuring 27 stories and five essays. "The hardest part was picking which [Opens] we should write about," Trostel said. "We decided to organize it into five themes."

The essays include Mike Davis (USGA executive director) writing on U.S. Open courses, Rand Jerris (USGA senior managing director for public services) on the first U.S. Open, David Schefter (USGA senior staff writer) on runners-up, Lewine Mair (British golf writer) on how the game became a global one, and Rhonda Glenn (former USGA communications director) on Ouimet.

The photographs were culled from the USGA's collection of 700,000 of them. The cover shows Tiger Woods looking to the sky after holing a 12-foot putt for birdie on the 72nd hole of the 2008 Open at Torrey Pines to tie Rocco Mediate, whom he defeated in a playoff the following day.

"That is such a great photograph and a great moment," Trostel said. "The whole place was absolutely electric. What you see is raw emotion both from Tiger and the crowd. We didn't want to use just a single shot. We wanted to show golf's grand stage. In that photo there are volunteers, fans, players, the course, everything that makes the U.S. Open."

Read More http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-equipment/blogs/newstuff#ixzz2T0hWQVyA

I have been working on my blogs for a while and every time I tweak something, I learn something new. Today, I am basically going to recap what I have posted so far. Previously I have posted on why blogs are important and I provided several traffic generation tips. Today, I will share some common working methods which you can implement right now to make your blog popular and stand out in the crowd. Some of the methods have been posted earlier. That’s why I said I am going to recap Keep in mind that these methods are simple to implement and they always work.

 Making a blog popular is every bloggers dream. It cannot be done overnight and I know it is not easy if you are new in the business but if you are hard working and are willing to learn and adapt, I can guarantee success my friend.

There are many ways to take your blog to the next level but always make sure you know what you are dealing with. I have seen people spamming the shit out of social bookmarking and networking sites such as digg, reddit and requesting people to vote for their links. Please do not do that. This is considered spam and it really sucks. But then again, reddit is very popular. If you have something awesome to share and it goes viral on reddit, you will get ton of traffic. So without further ado, I am listing out several killer ways you can get your blog popular in the right way.

Make Your Blog Popular "9 Method" That Work.

1. Customize Your Blog Design.

I have posted this like what, hundred times before. Well without a doubt, design matters. This is very important my friends and that is why I have listed it first. Every blog should have a unique design. People are attracted to something that is unique and interesting. When a person visits your blog, the design gives them the first impression and this determines the amount of time they spend browsing your blog. Now to be honest, if your blog has a crappy design, I am not going to visit it. Even if I visit it accidently, I might spend a few seconds before I leave and bam.

Look at this blog. How cool is it? I am sure you can setup something similar or decent. Practice makes perfection so keep tweaking and trying out new layout, design and navigation and focus on creating the best user experience for your readers.

 There are plenty of decent templates you can find online. I am running a customized thesis theme which is one of my favorites and it powers almost 80% of my websites. I chose thesis over woothemes and others because it gives you ton of sweet options such as buttons to easily change fonts, color and seo capability. It is easily customizable and if you know a little code like I do, you can create awesome designs in no time.

2. Add Your Blog To Blog Communities.

Blog communities are really popular for blogs. Other bloggers and web enthusiasts are constantly checking out these communities for networking and information. There are many communities you can submit your blog to but it’s better to stick with the ones which are popular and have a decent Google PR (pagerank).

 I have posted a list of top article and blog directories so check them out and submit your blog right away.

 Remember: When you follow a blog that you find interesting, and you contribute something nice through commenting on it, you are basically increasing your visibility in the community. A lot of people will check you out and also subscribe to your blog if you are good. Always try to participate in a network and engage in conversations. Whether you write a blog post or a comment, make sure it delivers some value to the community.

3. Write Tutorials And Pillar Articals.

I have followed Yaro Starak who is one of the top bloggers. Yaro has always emphasized the importance of pillar articles. Now think about this, if you write an article about what happened on a certain day, the content is meant only for that day and with time it gets old. But, if you write a How-to Article or a tutorial that solves a problem, it stays there forever.

Let me explain. If you write something about “How to get rid of twitter spam or How to get loyal readers to your blog”, you know that you can use these tutorials whenever you want and they won’t get old because the same method would apply all the time. Lots of people will share it and bookmark it for future reference. Pillar articles are killers and you can easily write at least 5-6 a month.

Check out my wordpress hacking prevention guide which got shared over thousand times throughout various social networks. The post was retweeted more than 700 times and is growing every day. It’s really not a big deal to see such numbers especially when your posts are awesome and solves a community problem.

4. Be A Guest Author On Popular Blogs.

Most blogs you will come across these days accept guest posts. Popular blogs like problogger, shoemoney, johnchow just to name a few; they all give new bloggers a chance to get noticed through guest blogging. Now this is a great opportunity and shouldn’t be missed. You can’t just post anything you like but it should be related to the niche and you have to prove your worth. One blog post on some of these popular blogs can get you huge amount of traffic.

How to find blogs that accept guest posts? How about you Google terms such as “guest post by” or you can check out this blog post on kissmetrics that explains guest blogging in details.

Writing guest posts is a truly amazing way to get noticed and drive traffic to your blog. Don’t forget the link juice you get and waves of new subscribers.

5. Give Something To Download For Free.

I love free stuff, don’t you? A good way to gain readership and make your blog popular is to give free stuff to the public. It can be almost anything; an eBook, a wordpress theme, some popular tools or even free online class. Based on the experience from my other blogs, people love free things especially when they are premium and valuable.

There are several PLR content that you could give away to your readers. Whatever you decide to give, make sure it is worth downloading. Ask yourself, would you download it yourself? If you wouldn’t download the free stuff yourself, you can’t expect others to download it either. Quality matters my friend and if your stuff is good, people will just keep coming.

6. Blog Frequently.

Fresh content is the key to your blog’s success. Do not just blog once a week and expect people to check in every day. Your readers are hungry for information and they expect to see something valuable and new on your blog frequently. I know sometimes you can get busy and have days when you don’t feel like blogging, and it is completely ok. If blogging is your passion, you will manage time for a post; it comes naturally my friends.

The search engines can find out how often you blog and they love fresh content. The more often you post to your blog, the better it gets. Of course, unless you follow a different blogging style such as Glen at viperchill who makes 1 – 3 posts per month. Glen has a unique style of creating blog posts. Most of his posts go above 4000 word limit and if you carefully notice, he has a lot of lengthy pillar articles on his blog. And as a result, viperchill gets 10 times more traffic than most other blogs combined in the similar niche. Viperchill is the proof that quality content matters over quantity of posts.

Whatever style you adapt, make sure your content is unique because at the end of the day, that is what matters the most.

7. Link Love

One of the best ways to get your blog noticed is to trade links with other bloggers in the same niche. There are multiple ways you can approach a blogger or an author and request for a link love. You can email them (make sure you don’t spam), you can comment on their blog post and request and of course add them on your facebook and discuss about it. I personally do not do this right now because google doesn’t give much value to such links.

The best way to get link love is through guest blogging as mentioned earlier. Try creating some great blog posts in some popular blogs and you will get both traffic and quality backlinks.

8. Create A Facebook Page And Promote It.

Facebook pages are rising in popularity. Check your account right now and tell me how many invitations you got to join a page. I bet it’s a lot. Create a facebook page for your blog right now and start sharing it with other millions of facebook users. When requesting to join your page, make sure you don’t spam because it can be really irritating. You can also set up your blog’s RSS Feed on the Page itself so that people can check out your posts without even visiting your blog.

The new facebook timeline gives you lots of options. There are lots of amazing facebook apps that you can use to integrate your blog with facebook and make sharing easy breezy. Some good methods you can use to promote your facebook page is by adding a widget on your blog, adding a popup like button, writing a blog post on it and also including the page details in your newsletter. Facebook is huge and the traffic is legit. The quicker you create your page and get involved with it, the better social presence you will have.

9. Get A Twitter Account And Tweet Your Post.

I am sure by now most bloggers have a twitter account. Forget bloggers, pretty much everyone has a twitter account today, and they use it to broadcast what they eat, when they sleep etc. There is no problem in doing that but to make it a little more productive, how about tweeting your blog posts to your followers instead.

People follow you because they are interested in sharing things with you. When you tweet, they are most likely willing to check it out. I like the idea of microblogging because it makes it easy for you to share your opinion and cool stuff with the world. Achieving the celebrity status on twitter is everyone’s dream. If you deliver value through tweets, you will have created a huge network of loyal followers who will retweet your stuff which eventually drive massive traffic to your blog. Retweets matter. Remember, retweets do not only help in driving traffic but also help in search engine optimization. I hope you have found this article useful. I would appreciate if you share it and spread the word. Keep following the right thing, learn and adapt and, I promise that your blog will reach new heights. What other ways can you make your blog popular?

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