Telling stories has become a large part of our lives. Thankfully, technology has made it easier not just to tell our story, but to share it with as many people as possible. Evan Williams and Biz Stone, the co-founders have Twitter, are introducing a preview of ‘Medium’, a publishing platform they say will be easy for people but at the same time, elevate the quality of the content.
Here are some comments from Williams about it:
Medium is designed to allow people to choose the level of contribution they prefer. We know that most people, most of the time, will simply read and view content, which is fine. If they choose, they can click to indicate whether they think something is good, giving feedback to the creator and increasing the likelihood others will see it.
Posting on Medium (not yet open to everyone) is elegant and easy, and you can do so without the burden of becoming a blogger or worrying about developing an audience. All posts are organized into “collections,” which are defined by a theme and a template. (For example, this post is in the About Medium collection with a simple article template.)
We believe that good design supports the purpose (not just the appeal) of content, so Medium is diverse in look and feel—ranging from different types of articles to images to, eventually, much more.
You can sign up for Medium using your Twitter credentials, but it is not available to the public just yet. However, you can get a feel for how the service will work. They have four “collections” that are being used right now:
The question of whether yet another publishing platform will be successful, remains to be seen.
It certainly looks great in terms of the design and it appears as though it will be easy to use.
What do you guys/gals think?
Are you going to try it out or do you have enough outlets?
Paul says
Looks pretty interesting, kind of like Pinterest for writings.
Jay Caruso says
That’s a good way to describe it.
Jonathan Assink says
To me, this is not far off from my reaction to app.net. I really don’t need another bucket to fill. I’m happy now with FB/Twitter/Blog (which I’m very happily with Tumblr for now). I’ve dabbled a little in Cowbird and Pinterest, but my creative outlet needs are met.
It worries me too that our social media landscape (ESPECIALLY Twitter) is becoming increasingly silo’ed. Rumblings that Twitter may cut off Instagram, a la LinkedIn, and now starting a Tumblr/Pinterest competitor makes me nervous. I don’t use Google+ because it’s out of the way of my usual web territory. Twitter grew in part because it was easily accessible and connected to pretty much anything else you wanted it to. It was a highway, not a destination. Twitter is almost intentionally moving itself further away in the hopes that you will do all of your social interaction inside of their walled city.
It’s like Facebook but more nefarious and less bumbling.
Jay Caruso says
Instagram has already cut off Twitter in a sense that Instagram can no longer use the Twitter API to find friends.
I agree that Twitter seems to be trying to close itself off. I hope we’re wrong.