I still don't know how Fiona has lasted this long is it the Anton effect I will be a bit surprised if after today's results she is still in the competition. Is she really that popular

Unless the BBC gives some indication of the number of online votes cast (and they probably never will), it is difficult to accurately assess the effect. I think (and it is only my thoughts) is that people are more likely to vote online if it is free and the demographics of the voters may also play a part as to whether people go online and vote or not.

Personally I have always cast a couple of votes on the phone, but I now use all my five votes and tend to vote for who appealed to me on the night and who I want to see again, which means that I have often voted for 5 different couples because I like them all!

I have done the same - for example I liked Patrick and Susanna's dances best last night so gave them both 2 votes (and one for Fiona because I thought she deserves another week and was in danger). I haven't voted for either Patrick or Susanna before. I think there is likely to be more volatility in the votes if more people are voting for the dance that appeals to them on the night rather than just their overall favourite.

Now that we can vote online, I am voting tactically but also saving enough votes for a favourite.
so, this week I voted for:
Abbey 1
Ashley 1
Ben 1
and Sophie 2

(Sophie 2 votes, because I want her to win - although she had better pick up a bit...! And the others because I want them to stay a bit longer)

Had I bothered to set up a number of different usernames I could have voted some more, but life's too short....

I have never voted by phone until the semi final and final, and then only for my favourite.

I would say that this new pattern (and those of others mentioned here) may be fairly typical of DS voters.

However, I'm not sure that applies to the GBP and depends very much on the demographic of strictly watchers.

I wouldn't dismiss the average member of the GBP as not wanting to vote online. In fact, I would say that the online vote is definitely aimed at Facebook, etc, users.
And it certainly doesn't mean that online voters will support more 'suitable' candidates. I would say that, allowing for the dross you can find on social networking sites, the opposite is more likely to be the case.

I can see that people can make multiple telephone votes and five votes allows people to support several contestants but is this still necessary as the number of contestants gets lower. In the final stages it is going to mostly be five votes for one person.

I'm afraid the online voting is seriously flawed and open to abuse . If you have 2 different web browsers like Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox you can vote 10 times .

I usually use Firefox as my browser but last night also used IE to see if I could vote again and with IE you can vote over and over non stop .

I used an iPad and just did it over and over and over again with a new username each time.

The cynic in me would suggest that as well as giving viewers another way of voting, it's to "encourage people to use modern technology, who would not other wise bother," or to get people to access the BBC's websites, more than they do, given the cost of them comes out of the licence fee. The fact that the voting system can be abused, isn't I guess that important when it relates to an entertainment show. After all there's only a "naff-looking plastic trophy" at stake.