When asked why they think this particular episode of Lost had such an impact on online views compared with other episodes and other shows, a representative for ABC told WebProNews, "Lost has been a top performer in terms of online viewing since we began making episodes available online several years ago. Fans of the show tend to be very tech-savvy and also tend to watch episodes more than once.  They also frequently go online to review specific scenes."

On Tuesday, leading up to the airing of the show, ABC.com saw over 1.8 million unique visitors and delivered over 7.4 million page views, a 5% and 43% increase, respectively over the previous year’s premiere date, based on data from Omniture. Visitors to ABC.com logged more than 2.2 million video views of "Lost"-related short-form content on Tuesday, an increase of over 32% compared to last season.

ABC gives viewers more than just the videos though. This season, ABC.com offers interactive, community-driven features including user-created Top 5 lists which allow fans to arrange, rank and share their personalized lists of show-related favorites; and Episode Commentary where fans can access commentaries created by series’ insiders, and create and share their own for each episode. 

The site will also soon unveil a Fan Art Wall, an interactive area for fans to upload, view and rate "Lost"-themed art created by fellow fans, and also give fans the opportunity to participate in a promo contest, providing users a "mash-up" tool to create and share their own "Lost" promos with a winning promo to be featured on-air.

There has been some talk about just how well TV shows will perform online in the future as Nielsen makes data available about the viewing of commercials that run in particular shows, whether they are viewed on TV or online. This could lead to online TV shows getting more ad-heavy.

"ABC.com’s full episode player features interactive video advertising," ABC tell us. "Lost episodes currently feature a single national sponsor. They have 4 30-second spots which can’t be skipped; additionally the local ABC affiliates sell one local spot per episode."

We won’t be able to compare Lost episodes from this season with episodes after the Nielsen stuff goes down, because this is the final season of the show, but it is going to be quite interesting to see how advertising on popular shows changes, if it does in fact do so.

We’ll admit: this move is sure to have its detractors.  DVD sales of "Lost" have been strong, and pirated episodes are (supposed to be) easy to find for free online.  So for ABC to make episodes available this late in the show’s run and also be stingy seems a little pointless.

But there is some hope that more installments are on the way, as a note on Hulu’s official page for "Lost" reads, "We’ll post additional seasons as they are made available."

Also, onlookers have to consider that the development helps Hulu keep pace with Netflix, which had its own "Lost"-related announcement to make today.

And finally, the "Lost" channel on Hulu should become much more useful when the sixth season starts to air.  If fans miss an episode or want to review a certain segment, no DVDs will be available yet, and Hulu will present a legal alternative to the pirates.

American Idol
(Photo Credit: Fox Interactive Media)

Nielsen Online said Fox had 4.6 million unique visitors in January, a 101 percent increase from December, beating out CBS (4.5 million, a 24 % decrease) for the month. The two networks still lag behind ABC.com and NBC.com, which had 8.1 million and 7.9 million visitors respectively.

Along with American Idol, the Fox Web site was helped by the return of "Prison Break" and the debut of "Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles," Bill Bradford, senior vp content strategy at Fox told Reuters. While Fox does not stream American Idol episodes on its site, it managed to be the most visited property with approximately 1.1 million visitors.

ABC.com had an 11 percent increase for the month, due in part to "Lost’s" January 31 return. Although the streaming figures for "Lost" will be counted for February’s numbers, ABC heavily promoted the show on the site throughout the month.

In addition ABC made the first three seasons of "Lost" available online and introduced "Lost Theories," which allowed viewers to upload videos to the site explaining their own theories about the series.

On the Google LatLong Blog, Jessica Lee notes, "It includes all the places mentioned on the show, such as where Sawyer grew up, the flight path of Oceanic 815, and the locations of the Hanso Foundation offices.  It also has a ton of interesting trivia.  For example, did you know that the characters were lying whenever they mentioned Canada?"

But as Lee points out, a key fact about this map is that it’s user-created, and not a product of Mountain View’s might.  Dudu Maroja gets credit for the actual content, while Google deserves some applause for having such flexible software.

On that note, Lee also links to maps relating to several other shows; "Veronica Mars" and "The Sopranos" were two titles that caught my eye.  Also, although I can’t bring myself to link to them, there are some "American Idol" maps out there.  So if anyone’s looking for TV-related stuff to do, Google and a handful of dedicated fans have given you few options.