Fortune's Brainstorm Tech blog has a nice little write up of SOMA-based Sugar Inc., parent company of the PopSugar family of blogs.

The three-and-a-half year old company, which is set to become profitable this quarter, is notable for several reasons, writes Adam Lashinsky, including for the way it makes money.

Rather than relying solely on advertising, Sugar has set up a system where it gets commissions on from retailers when their readers go shopping.

"Sugar is a nascent success and an example of what magazines may become," Lashinsky says. "It doesn't provide an answer to the question of what will become of long-form journalism, because it chose a segment that wasn't exactly bubbling over with ponderous feature stories to begin with. All the same, that something is working in publishing these days, and that's at least some hopeful news."