Some Absolutely Staggering Facts About American Idol You Should Know Before You Start Watching Again

It Revolutionized Texting

Photo Credit: Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times / Getty Images

American Idol helped to revolutionize the use of texting and fan interaction with live shows and voting. Host Ryan Seacrest literally taught Americans how to use their cell phones and text in their votes on the show in Season 1. Cell phones were very new at the time and there had previously been no vote texting on any other show.

Not only did Idol help the viewers adapt to new technology, but the series would also revolutionize disaster relief and other text messaging based fundraising. Engineers at AT&T came up with a way to combine texting and text donating after Hurricane Katrina that was based on the American Idol system.