What Medium Is

http://dashes.com/anil/2013/08/what-medium-is.html

by clarkm • 13 years ago

24 8 13 years ago

ser0• 13 years ago

I think the author's point is reasonable, that Medium attempts to act as a 'YouTube' for articles. However, I believe there are key differences at this point in Medium's evolution (I do believe they will change their model over time).

For me, thinking writing an article, Medium offers the following: a possible readership/distribution (assuming I get picked up by editors), no long term commitments, no investment in set up (as opposed to a hosted personal blog), and little friction in posting.

As an idea, having a streamlined essay posting & sharing process seems good, however I think that Medium will need to address the following issues going forward:

* Serious authors will eventually want to build their own identity/brand. I think much of posts in HN that criticise Medium comes down to this issue. When you write for Medium, you almost seem to detach yourself from the work. YouTube addresses this problem by offering channels with revenue sharing. This means that the amount of time required to publish a piece of quality output for free can be justified to some degree. For Medium though, I see this limitation as restricting its content to be published by those that do not intent to write regularly and do not already have an outlet for their writing.

* Dealing with signal vs noise. Assuming the above is not addressed, and Medium continues to be a place where semi-serious, or novice, authors essentially practice their craft, then there will be a lot of crap for people to sift through in order to read some content that appeals to them. If Medium editors are tasked with this job, that in itself would be a manual process that would be difficult to scale.

* Curating content when authors have no commitments. When people write a blog, it needs a title, which will usually indicate what the general topic of the blog is about. Although authors can deviate from time to time, I find most successful blogs are generally on-topic as the author develops expertise both in the area of interest and in his/her ability to communicate their ideas surround the topic. However, on Medium, this commitment is no longer required. You can sign in, write, and your output is only loosely linked to you as an author. This means that there is no simple predictor of content category and quality.

Personally, I would very much like to see a platform where people can post, be read, and ideally get some compensation for their writing if they can find an audience; basically YouTube for writers as the article states. However, I think Medium is still a fair way away from that model at this point.

lists• 13 years ago

They can offer author branding when they reach whatever threshold they've chosen. They can even put branded authors together in a specific collection just to keep in line with their typology. I'm not sure about how they'll resolve your other arguments, but the branding complaint I see a lot on of on Hn, and it's weird to see cause they're a start-up and something like that is when, not if.

larrys2• 13 years ago

In essence simply an attempt by a friend (fully disclosed in paragraph one and worn as a badge of honor) to get more discussion and press around medium. Part of the campaign to gain an audience for medium.

(Of course not taking Anil's reputation into account this would actually work much better w/o the offered disclosure allowing someone else to point that out and for Anil to respond to the controversy and create more press and commentary.)

anildash• 13 years ago

My intent was really just to engage in a dialogue that was already going on (see e.g. Alexis Madrigal's Atlantic piece), but I can understand that perspective. Truth is, lots of people are talking about Medium, way more than would be impacted by me writing something on my personal blog. If this we're trying to be some clever PR strategy, it'd be a hell of a lot dumber than them just getting regular press. (Which I think Businessweek just did on its own anyway?)

larrys2• 13 years ago

Hadn't read that yet but it certainly follows the same pattern.

And that "to be sure" was buried a little more than what you said so clearly:

"clearly driven by Medium's in-house editors like former Wired.com chief Evan Hansen (for whom I used to work)."

Having pulled off PR that made it to the front page of the WSJ and having made it many times into the NYT I know a good thing when I see it. My comment was more like a "watch and learn" for anyone not realizing what is going on with this.

Way to much is being made about Medium considering what it is. If it hadn't been started by you know who it would have a much less critical mass of ink.

That Atlantic article is totally over the top. (I enjoyed reading it of course!)

Things like this make me wish I had the time to blog (I don't I can barely find the time to comment on things I'd rather make money but not the type that you get paid if you get paid to write for medium).

I enjoyed what you wrote by the way.

jeffehobbs• 13 years ago

If a platform has to work this hard to define and explain what it is, it might not be that great of a platform.

Still unsold: Why is Medium better for individual expression than starting your own blog?

Further: If SEO is doing what it should do, why should I care how my articles are arranged on my own site? What genuine advantage does Medium offer regular, non-hyper-connected authors (especially in it's current, invite-only publishing state)?

aytekin• 13 years ago

"If a platform has to work this hard to define and explain what it is, it might not be that great of a platform."

Reminds me of the first years of twitter. People either loved it or hated it. But, almost no one understood it.

"What genuine advantage does Medium offer regular, non-hyper-connected authors"

About 100 first readers. I guess that depends on the channels you post on. I only made 3 posts all in "what I learned building" collection.

selfexperiments• 13 years ago

Why all the verbiage? The essence of Medium should be described in two sentences.

What Medium Is

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