Semifinal 2 Reactions and Final Predictions?

I got 7 out of 10 qualifiers, not too bad. Croatia and Slovakia were just guesses and I probably shouldn't have expected them to qualify. It shows that YouTube views and being the sole representative of a genre can only get a song so far. Slovenia, on the other hand, I was very disappointed to see not qualify as this always seems to happen every time I really like the Slovenian entry (see 2006 and 2008). Of the qualifiers I didn't get, Bosnia & Herzegovina and FYR Macedonia were pleasant surprises, but Malta still puzzles me.

It must be time for some predictions for the final. It's hard to say who will win. The betting favorite and OGAE vote favorite is Sweden, but they're spotty as to actually predicting the winner. It's also my favorite too, which is a terrible predictor of the real winner. However, it is more popular than the other songs in the contest on iTunes in several countries, and it's currently #14 on Spotify (though it only seems to be available there in Scandinavia).

Russia has the most YouTube views on the official channel by far, followed by Turkey and Cyprus. The past two winners were the songs with the most views on the official channel, so that's a good omen for Russia.

It's hard to predict the top 10 in a field of 26. It would seem easy to just pick songs that are in the second half but last year, six of the top ten were in the first half of the show. However, in 2010 only three of the top ten were in the first half. I could make a case for 20 of the songs appearing in the top 10

Here is my prediction for the top 10 of this year's Eurovision final.

ALBANIA
AZERBAIJAN
GREECE
IRELAND
ITALY
RUSSIA
SERBIA
SWEDEN
TURKEY
UKRAINE

I put Albania in the place of "whatever ballad the juries like more" which I guess could be Estonia or even United Kingdom. Greece's spot in the top 10 is practically reserved at this point, as is Azerbaijan's, and they won't let hosting the show stop them from putting in a professional and successful three minutes of their own. Last year Ireland appealed to both juries and home voters and that should also probably stay the same. Italy is looking good and has a lot of hype behind it, and last year juries seemed eager to please Italy. Russia needs no explanation, and it will be surprising if it doesn't come top 5 in the televote. Serbia will be the ex-Yugoslavian representative in the top 10 due to the quality of the song, the popularity of the performer, and the draw (although I wouldn't complain if FYR Macedonia took its place). Sweden is because of the hype and the performance. Turkey is because of the social media popularity and that teenage girls who aren't into Jedward need some cute guy to text for. Ukraine has an amazing performance, and they also have an impressive record of coming in the top 10.