Magazines have an incredible opportunity to adopt this phenomenon online, but doing so requires a different approach to editorial and product development.

Consider these five points:
1. Focus on the value exchange between your brand and your users.
2. Harness the social graph imaginatively; think beyond your editorial content.
3. Don’t be afraid to mix your community with your advertising.
4. Help marketers find the social influencers.
5. Design social products, not products spread socially.

An excellent example of a print publication embracing all these components in an innovative online product is the The Economist.com’s recently relaunched debate series. The Economist took the Oxford style debate—a hypothesis, moderator, pro and con speakers, rebuttals and comments from the floor—and brought it online.