"Lost" links

Game companies have been using so-called "viral marketing" for a few years now — the most famous probably is www.ilovebees.com for the game "Halo 2" — but television has been slow to catch on. Not anymore.

Now "Lost" fans have their own made-up viral marketing sites, including one for Oceanic Airlines, the flight company within the show (www.oceanic-air.com), and the Hanso Foundation, the organization responsible for the hatch (http://thehansofoundation.org). The Dharma Initiative, a research project important to the plot, has a few sites (including www.dharmaindustries.com), and www.oceanicflight815.com/, is awfully pretty. All were created by ABC/Disney, the parent company behind "Lost."

Fans themselves have gotten into the act, creating a fake blog for Driveshaft, Charlie's band (www.driveshaftband.com). The site includes lyrics, a guestbook and a link to a fictional PBS special on the loss of Flight 815.

Of course, regular Web sites also have proliferated in the wake of "Lost's" popularity. There's the official Web site (http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost), as well as The Fuselage, a site from the show's producers (thefuselage.com). The site called Lost Hatch has an exhaustive list of clues (www.losthatch.com), while the Wikipedia online encyclopedia has information on every character and plot twist (search en.wikipedia.org for "Lost TV series"). And "The Transmission," a fan podcast that's actually more interesting than the official one, is a great way to listen in on other people's theories (www.hawaiiup.com/lost).