• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, March 2, 2009

CBS' hit How I Met Your Mother has a knack for taking show references and parlaying them into online reality. The best part: Each site solidifies fans' attachment to the quirky comedy. Forget cbs branding: This is cyberspace as show extension. Only dedicated viewers are likely to type in obscure urls, making the inside jokes even funnier. The weekly episode may end, but the fiction goes on forever; and as viewers live more of their lives online it makes sense that their shows would follow them there in a way that moves beyond streaming video.

On a normal day, nothing would prompt me to type in tedmosbyisajerk.com to see if the site exists - unless it was name-dropped on himym. It does, and so do barneysvideoresume.com, mysteriousdrx.com and myspace.com/robinsparkles.

Don't expect high-tech, fancy-pants technological feats from these sites. They're simple and bare-bones, which is why they work. Very few tv shows invest such online dedication to minor offline references. But they should. The publicity is priceless, but costs very little.