Dumb gimmicks: boo
And again, I say “boo”. Dumb gimmicks suck. Especially when they detract from a great story. The SciFi channel is starting to hold about two minutes out of the end of each episode of Battlestar Galactica, which you then have to go to their website to see. At the very least, it’s an unwanted interruption and the quality of the website video quite sucks relative to television. At worst, it means that people without Internet access don’t get to see it at all.
I you want people to go to your website, here’s a novel idea: put content there worth going to see. Essentially blackmailing your most loyal fans (i.e. the only ones who are going to bother) into going there is really bad form.
Boo.