The story was written by Access Hollywood and is in the OMG section of Yahoo, for anyone interested.

http://omg.yahoo.com/news/changes-coming-to-american-idols-season-8/16537?nc

No way Reuben won that contest but it all worked out in the end. “Not winning” may have been one of the best things to happen to him.

So, I love the Wild card round and this will be the first year since 2005/06 that I have been really interested and somewhat excited about idol.

Wait a sec…I don’t get this Top 36 invited to Hollywood thing.

The Top 50 are going to be whittled down to the Top 36 instead of a Top 24. They do this in “Hollywood” as well. Actually, it’s Pasadena, and it happens in January.

Technically there are 2 “Hollywood Rounds” The one in November that has about 200 people, and then again in January, when the 50 are whittled down to the contestants who will compete live on the show.

I personally do NOT like the way the semifinals were carried out in S1-3. It allowed the one-hit-wonders to advance and greatly decreased the chances of the people who didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t get much airtime.

Same here. Jasmine Trias and John Stevens, anyone? Are the producers’ memories really that short?

The wildcard round is not a bad re-addition to the format, but I really don’t like the idea of people advancing straight to the top 12 on the basis of one performance.

I AM glad that the Hollywood rounds are going to be longer. That’s one of my favorite parts of the competition.

I enjoyed the wild card years myself, but also liked when they changed things up a bit. I always think how Idol would not have had Clay Aiken without a wild card pick which ultimately gave the viewers the famous Clay/Ruben duel that made that year really interesting, not to mention a year of some great, great singing.

Time for some fresh approaches (even if slightly rehashed) to how they do things.

More emphasis on the aspirational singers makes me happy too. I’m so tired of the bad auditions.

I’m a little confused about the new system, and I kinda miss the wildcard. I’m ready for anything. But overall, I’m ready for AI!

Bring. It. On!

The Wildcard round was also fun and I’m glad it’s coming back. It’s a chance for the audience to save some people that the judges might not select.

I’m also glad it’s 2 days a week at first and not 3. That was overkill.

So far it sounds good to me. As for Paula’s accusations, she is pretty nutso but I also wouldn’t put it past the producers to pull that sh*t on her.

And like Kristen mentioned, just think about who the Top 12 would have been in S4-7. I personally don’t think Cook would have advanced past the first week if he had been stuck in a group with say, Michael Johns and David Archuleta (who were pimped to the max prior to semifinals).

Except that 2 weeks of Hollywood means that people will start building fanbase from there.

Yeah, I know, this is why I added the “or not”. LOL. I was grasping at straws trying to find a positive side to it all. Sigh.

Well how about this: it will definitely get more dramatic this way. Much more “sudden death”. Which is probably why the producers made the switch.

I like that idea actually, make it the top 10 vote-getters from the entire semi-finals that advance and everyone else is eliminated unless they advance to Wildcard Round 1.

I’m not sure all voting nights are equal, so this would seem unfair to me. Unless you want 36 people to sing in one night (which would never work). If they sing on different nights, but pool the results, is it fair to the one group of singers that sang the night some special episode was on another channel or something? Maybe people aren’t ready to vote the first week, but more jump in the second and third week.

I guess there is no fair way. I feel that the format used in Seasons 4-7 was pretty fair, but I don’t think they needed to have the girls and boys groups. Just groups. They could even mix up the groups from week to week. Sure, some better people always got the boot early, but I think it was fairer than the S1-3 way.

Except that 2 weeks of Hollywood means that people will start building fanbase from there.

And maybe it starts even earlier.
I only take short look at the discussion on the rumoured contestant, but some of them seem to start to have some favourites even yet, thanks to myspace,
And what about people like Jasonà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s brother or others, who could gather fanà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s for other reasons.