Medium is a stylish source of blogging articles that was founded in 2012 by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. I have read a lot of great articles there over the last few years, however I have never been tempted to write there myself.
There was no incentive for me to publish on another website such as Medium as ultimately they would have full control over the content and receive all the traffic. It is better to add content to your own website. Admittedly, there are ways to promote yourself and your business on Medium, but I still never saw the attraction.
That may be about to change.
About thirty minutes ago Medium announced that they have launched a new service called Medium for Publishers. It offers many new tools for publishers and bloggers.
Medium for Publishers
It is inevitable that this new service will be compared to WordPress. Every new publishing service that is launched is always compared to WordPress so there is nothing new there.
If you are going to compare Medium for Publishers to WordPress, be sure to compare it to the hosted version WordPress.com and not the self-hosted version available at WordPress.org.
Medium for Publishers gives you a stylish way of presenting content on the internet. Your content will be displayed in a mobile-friendly design that has been optimised for search engines and you can brand your space with your brand and logo. You can also use your own custom domain.
One feature that interests me is the ability to send newsletters to all of your Medium followers. Followers can be imported from Facebook and Twitter to enhance your following further. This opens up many email marketing opportunities (but hopefully not ways for websites to spam people who don’t want those emails).
Signing up to Medium will allow you to tap into Medium’s high traffic and they are giving publishers a number of ways to earn money from their website. The first is displaying promoted stories on your website. The second is an option to set up a private membership for followers in which they need to pay a fee to view your content.
Medium have said that they are providing ways for publishers to import their content from elsewhere and that all publishers will retain full rights to their content.
Is that enough?
For me, it isn’t. Whilst I would love to tap into some of Medium’s traffic, I don’t want to be bound by their rules and stipulations. Nor do I want the future of my blog held in someone else’s hands. However, everyone has different goals. A lot of people do not want the hassle of maintaining software and security updates and other time-consuming tasks that a blog requires. If you just want a voice on the internet, Medium for Publishers gives you or your company a great place to do it.
I think this is a great move for Medium and I welcome another service like this in the marketplace as it gives users more options and drives innovation. I have no doubt a lot of WordPress.com bloggers will be looking to try it out to see what it offers.
You can read the full announcement of this news in the article “Making Medium More Powerful for Publishers” and sign up for the service at publishers.medium.com.
What do you think of Medium for Publishers? Is it something you would use?
Thanks for reading.
Kevin