We're starting a new series here at TBG–Friday's Five.  Every Friday we're going to publish a top 5 list.  The topic of the list will always change, but the five items featured in the list will always be related to one another.  For this week's list, we're going to build on our recently published magazine study and run down our five favorite magazine websites.

This list was pretty difficult to build. Many of the magazine websites are extremely similar, so picking the 5 best was a tricky process.  Making matters more complicated, some of the most robust sites are part of larger online networks (such as Money Magazine, which is part of CNN.com or Martha Stewart Living, which shares content with the larger Martha Stewart network).  To be fair, our list only includes websites that are unique to a particular magazine.  Here goes nothing.

1. TV Guide.  Not only does this site have tons of content related to TV and movies, including reviews, previews, video snippets, and listings, but it also has some interesting blog features.  The 40+ celebrity blogs (comments allowed!) are augmented by community blogs maintained by readers. The site has a solid design and navigation, and is all together well-done.

2. Rolling Stone.  Photos, videos, and blogs.  User reviews and ratings of movies and cd's.  Those features alone would be enough to get RollingStone.com on this list.  The site really surprised me with their section for listening to music.  After just a quick download of a mini-Rhapsody player (no registration required!), users can listen to music featured in the print edition of Rolling Stone.  Another cool feature are the celebrity playlists. I mean, who doesn't want to know what Carrie Underwood's favorite songs are? 

3. Better Homes and Gardens.  Pulled in by the shnazy feature box on the homepage, BHG.com has lots of nifty features that you might not notice right of the bat.  The "clip it" feature lets you save tidbits of information ("just like tearing a page out of a magazine") in your myBHG.com account so you can use them later.  This was also the only magazine site I noticed that has a downloadable widget that you can put on your desktop to get updates from the website.  The site also features several interactive home design tools, which are pretty fun to mess around with.  One downside-the features are only available if you register for the site (it's free).

4. Family Circle. From the same network as BHG.com, the Home and Family Network, Family Circle offers similar functionality as BHG.com–reader comments for articles and features, bookmarking articles and features in their site accounts, and a tag cloud linked to message boards appears on the main site.  There also are many up to date blogs and links to blogs on other sites within the Home and Family Network.

5. US News and World Report . Nothing too earth-shattering here.  However, I appreciate the site's design, which is much more organized and "sane" than most other magazine websites on our list.  The content is professional, interesting, and easy to browse.  There are lots of blogs (although you can't comment on them, so let's instead call them 'columns'), and there is a section where they publish letters to the editor, which can be emailed to the site.  I think the key here is that this publication has really made an effort to make some of its highly valued content (primarily in the rankings section of the site) available to a larger audience by publishing this info online.  It also sets itself apart from other magazine websites by keeping things simple–the site isn't overcrowded, loaded with doohickeys, or cluttered with too many headlines.

What do you look for in magazine websites and what are some of your favorites?  Share in the comments.