ONLINE VOTING COMING TO AMERICAN IDOL

The Fox Network will come together with the social network when online voting begins for American Idol on March 1. Fox said Thursday that anyone with a Facebook account will be able to sign on to www.americanidol.com and cast up to 50 online votes. (Facebook will verify the identity of the voters and make certain that they limit their votes to 50.) In a statement, Idol executive producer Simon Fuller said, “We have been wanting to do online voting for several years, and now Facebook has offered us a secure solution and we are ready to go.” In addition to the 50 votes allowed on Facebook, voters can continue to vote via toll-free telephone numbers and, for AT&T wireless customers, via text message. In an email to the New York Times, Katherine Meizel, author of “Idolized: Music, Media and Identity in “American Idol,” said, “For years there have been critiques that suggest the dominance of Southern Idol winners is due to the dominance of AT&T in the South, so this could mitigate that issue.”