Welcome to Our Digital Hotlist Special Issue

You can’t see, taste or hear it. But, boy, can you feel it.

In compiling our list of what platforms and publishers will matter most to marketers in the coming years, we look first for a compelling growth rate. We take into account audience size and revenue or earning potential. But we also have to put great store in an instinctive feel for what is going to be big. This feel is developed over the course of the year as we follow and report on these entities and talk to the people creating and running them, as well as their partners and, yes, their critics.

We intend the ranked list, compiled and written up by our digital editors, Mike Shields and Brian Morrissey, to consist of properties that are making the biggest difference and which are likely to influence the shape of the digital landscape over the...