Medium (website)

Medium
Web address medium.com
Commercial? Yes
Type of site
 Blog host
Launched August 2012 (2012-08)
Alexa rank
 Increase 454 (January 2016)[1]
Current status Active

Medium is a blog-publishing platform founded by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams in August 2012,[2] The platform has evolved into a hybrid of non-professional contributions and professional, paid contributions, an example of social journalism.[3] Some of its publications include the online music magazine Cuepoint, edited by Jonathan Shecter, and the technology publication Backchannel, edited by Steven Levy.

Background

Williams created Medium from the ground up, with the idea of encouraging users to create longer posts than the 140-character standard of Twitter. Williams stated, "There's been less progress toward raising the quality of what's produced."[4] By April 2013, Williams reported there were 30 full-time staff working on the platform,[5] including a vacancy for a "Storyteller" role,[6] and that it was taking "98 percent" of his time.[5] By August, Williams reported that the site was still small, though he was still optimistic about it, saying "We are trying to make it as easy as possible for people who have thoughtful things to say".[7]

The platform software provides a full WYSIWYG user interface when editing online, with various options for formatting provided as the user runs over text. Once an entry is posted, it can be recommended and shared by other people, in a similar manner to Twitter.[6] Posts can be upvoted in a similar manner to Reddit, and content can be assigned a specific theme, in the same way as Tumblr. A specific difference from Williams' earlier service Blogger is that posts are sorted by topic rather than writer.[8] The platform uses the system of recommendations, similar to "likes" on Facebook, to up vote the best articles and stories. The Tag system divides the stories into different categories to let the audiences choose. Users can create a new account using an email address or a Twitter, Facebook, or Google account.[9]

Publications

Cuepoint, Medium's music publication, is edited by Jonathan Shecter, a music industry entrepreneur and co-founder of The Source magazine. It publishes essays on artists, trends, and releases, written by Medium community contributors, major record executives, and music journalists,[10] including Robert Christgau, who contributed his "Expert Witness" capsule review column.[11]

Medium also publishes a technology publication called Backchannel, edited by Steven Levy.[12]

Reception

Reviewing the service, The Guardian enjoyed some of the collections that had been created, particularly a collection of nostalgic photographs created by Williams.[13] TechCrunch's Drew Olanoff suggested the platform might have taken its name from being a "medium" sized platform in between Twitter and full-scale blogging platforms such as Blogger.[6] However, the service has suffered criticism from writers, with some confused about exactly what it is expected to provide.[14] Lawrence Lessig welcomed the platform's affordance of Creative Commons licensing for user content,[15] a feature demonstrated in a Medium project with The Public Domain Review — an interactive online edition of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, annotated by a dozen Carroll scholars, allowing free remixes of the public domain and Creative Commons licensed text and art resources with reader-supplied commentaries and artwork.[16][17]

Censorship

In January 2016, Medium received a take down notice from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission for one of the articles published by the Sarawak Report. The Sarawak Report had been hosting its articles on Medium since July 2015, when its own website was blocked by the Malaysian government.[18]

Medium's legal team responded to the commission's request with a demand for further information, and declined to take the content down.[19] In response, as of January 27, 2016 all content on Medium has been unavailable for Malaysian internet users.

References

  1. ↑ "medium.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2016-01-27.
  2. ↑ Panzarino, Matthew. "Twitter Co-Founder Evan Williams’ Blogging Platform Medium Opens Signups To All". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
  3. ↑ Sussman, Ed. "The New Rules of Social Journalism". Pando Daily. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  4. ↑ Letzing, John (15 August 2012). "Twitter Founders Unveil New Publishing ‘Medium’". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  5. 1 2 Taylor, Colleen (5 April 2013). "Williams, Biz Stone, And Jason Goldman Shift Focus To Individual Startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 Olanoff, Drew (15 November 2012). "True Purpose Of His New Publishing Tool". TechCrunch. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  7. ↑ Stone, Brad (22 August 2013). "Twitter Co-Creator Ev Williams Stretches the Medium". Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  8. ↑ Shontell, Alyson (15 August 2012). "The Cofounders Of Twitter Launch A New Blog Platform, Medium". Business Insider. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  9. ↑ "Medium Login FAQ". medium.com. Retrieved 2014-10-25.
  10. ↑ "music producer JONATHAN SHECTER and musician/producer DAN FREEMAN: Entrepreneurship in the Digital Music Industry". The Office for the Arts at Harvard. Archived from the original on October 3, 2015. Retrieved October 2, 2015.
  11. ↑ Christgau, Robert (August 14, 2015). "Welcome to Expert Witness, a New Weekly Column by the Dean of American Rock Critics". Noisey. Retrieved August 14, 2015.
  12. ↑ Steven Levy. "Why I Started Backchannel". Medium. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  13. ↑ "Twitter founders launch two new websites, Medium and Branch". The Guardian. 15 August 2012. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  14. ↑ Dalenberg, Alex (23 August 2013). "Mysterious Medium has writers moderately freaked out". Upstart Business Journal. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  15. ↑ Lessig, Lawrence (May 6, 2015). "Why I’m Excited for Medium’s Partnership with Creative Commons". Medium. Archived from the original on 2015-09-11. Retrieved 2015-09-15.
  16. ↑ Park, Jane (July 28, 2015). "Happy 150th, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland!". Creative Commons. Archived from the original on 2015-09-05. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  17. ↑ Editor. "About 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'". Medium.com. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  18. ↑ Yi, Beh Lih (2015-07-20). "Sarawak Report whistleblowing website blocked by Malaysia after PM allegations". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-01-27.
  19. ↑ Legal, Medium (2016-01-26). "The Post Stays Up". Medium. Retrieved 2016-01-27.

External links

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