Submission title: ABC Lost Theories
Category: Energizing
Name of company submitting: Mzinga

ABC's Lost serial drama television series premiered in 2004 to rave reviews. In its first year alone, the show drew an average of 16 million viewers per episode and over the past four years, has become a part of American popular culture.

Since its inception, Lost has been at the forefront of innovation in online television distribution, and in 2006, ABC made episodes available for free online in streaming format, with advertising.

In the fall of 2007, ABC decided to further engage its already devoted fan base by launching Lost Theories-- message boards that allows fans of the show to contribute their ideas about what is happening on the Lost island.

Other fans can either rate or comment (or both) on those theories, and the "Hottest Theories" are easily displayed for all site visitors to review.

Given the high volume traffic and activity, it was important that ABC have a method to identify user posts that reflect negatively on the ABC and Lost brands. This is made available by Report Violation links on every post that users can leverage to send violation alerts to site administrators, which helps ABC monitor content efficiently.


Business benefits and metrics
ABC sells advertising and sponsorships on the Lost Theories message boards, and the high-volume traffic has drawn increased revenue for the network.

In the past year, the Lost Theories message boards have garnered 2,547,127 total visits, and fans and visitors have viewed more than 339,821,252 posted messages.

The show's fifth season is set to premiere in early 2009, and ABC has announced that the show will air until at least 2010.