Fans of "Farscape," "Jericho" and "Pushing Daisies" all know the feeling of having their favorite series yanked from the schedules and cast aside through a cold act of number crunching. Now though, there is a new way to track the success of a series that could eliminate the danger or low ratings: Their online following.

Thanks to a new innovation from Web creation service Wetpaint, the TV Fandex has been created and designed to track the level of "fan engagement" in such a way that it can be used to calculate the real devotion fans have for a television series. Among the many fan sites that will be recorded are the myriad of social networking pages such as Facebook and Twitter.

"It's clear there is a fundamental decentralization underway in how consumers experience TV programing, but the measurement tools have remained substantially the same," Wetpaint chief executive officer Ben Elowitz said. "Fans now have the tools to connect and evangelize, and they are using them with gusto. The TV Fandex provides networks and producers with the first gauge of the winners and losers in creating and retaining an online audience."

The service already is in use and according to the results of its first week, HBO's adult-rated vampire series "True Blood" is leading the way, followed by crime drama "NCIS" on CBS. "True Blood" originally launched last year with a 12-episode season on premium cable and very quickly earned critical acclaim for its matter-of-fact take to the vampire phenomenon and was swiftly renewed for second year. "NCIS," meanwhile, remains a solid, well-established series but is part of a more mainstream genre that is expected to grab more numbers than shows from the science-fiction or fantasy league.

"House," "Weeds" and the recently canceled "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" hold the remaining top five slots and the full top 100 is expected to be released on a weekly basis. The success of "Sarah Connor" may not be able to revive the series, however these results prove that there is still sufficient interest in the series even after its demise (although it is not clear how much of that could be attributed to the success of "Terminator: Salvation").

"We need to solve the problem of which shows have fan enthusiasm, not just across the TV dimension," Elowitz said.

Of course, there are other ways of tracking the success of television shows. Airlock Alpha makes up of a Stability Index Rating to track how stable a television audience really was. The process involves comparing a show's highest rating with its average, and the number is then inverted to create an index rating.

This season, the almost cancelled Fox series "Dollhouse" had a Stability Index Rating of 92.0 which placed it as the second most stable show airing, beaten only by "Reaper" on The CW. "Life On Mars" on ABC dragged its heels to last place and was followed by "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

In the end, however, the fate of television shows still relies on how many people are watching the commercials that come with it as advertisers remain the primary source of revenue for such programs. However, creating indices like this could help buzz for shows that are considered on the bubble.