On Medium

Ev Williams is on to something. He has been on to something for a while. I realize that on any given night I am using three of his creations. I write my blog using Blogger. I spend a bunch of time on Twitter. And since recent I am an avid reader on Medium. His Medium tagline summarizes it well: "I make systems that encourage typing and thinking (Blogger, Twitter, Medium). @ev."

I read interesting posts on Medium. About a variety of topics. I keep going back to it every night. This made me wonder what was so appealing about this new service. And more importantly, it made me wonder whether I should be writing my posts on Medium or keep posting on my blog. I was even intruiged after reading Andrew Torba's post tonight on how he reached over 100,000 views in 30 days on Medium.

Other than "new is better" and having a big name entrepreneur behind it attracting lots of attention, what does appear to make Medium great?

First of all, the current batch of writers have something interesting to say. Of course that could be coincidence. Good writers may have been suffocated among the thousands of blogs: from soccer moms and tweens to marketers posting wolf blogs in sheep skins. A new platform like Medium may be just the air good writers were looking for to distinguish themselves.

Secondly, it appears to be about simple differences, as compared with Ev's previous platform, Blogger. Medium is the new Blogger + curated contents. Medium provides groups or topics you can subscribe to. Furthermore it provides the reader with an index for new and interesting topics. That's it! That little change may be just the magic sauce which makes Medium succeed.

Lastly, the webpage's visual style is refreshing and most importantly simple. Although that may be true today, a webpage style is easily copied.  Today, it definitely helps making Medium a great publishing platform.