The New MediumFor those of you who read my stuff, you’ll know that I have been writing on Medium for over a year and a half. I am a power user by every…
For those of you who read my stuff, you’ll know that I have been writing on Medium for over a year and a half. I am a power user by every stretch of the imagination.
I have published nearly 700 blog posts on the platform. At least one every single day since February of 2016. I publish my original content on my own blog, and then republish it direct to Medium for SEO and prosperity reasons.
Needless to say, I care about Medium and think it should exist. After all, I use it every day.
Yesterday, Medium announced their expansion of the Medium Partner Program — which, somewhat controversially, came with a few “big” updates:
1. New Logo
https://medium.design/logos-and-brand-guidelines-f1a01a733592
People are really torn over the new style. In my opinion, I like it.
It returns to the original style of simple yet complex. The minimalism lets the letters’ design shine — which, imo, is really the point of Medium.
Medium is the easiest and simplest way to publish the best of anything. You do not need fancy graphics on Medium, you just need words that tell a story. The new logo conveys that.
2. Clapping?
The more controversial change was the introduction of clapping. If you are familiar with the platform, you’d know that for a while now, as a viewer, you could show some love to the author by giving them a “heart” and recommend their story.
These recommendations were fairly arbitrary. Other important metrics were things like “time spent on the story” and number of “views.”
Now it’s clapping:
“Today we’re hoping to change that. Rolling out to Medium users over the coming week will be a new, more satisfying way for readers to give feedback to writers. We call it “Claps.” It’s no longer simply whether you like, or don’t like, something. Now you can give variable levels of applause to a story. Maybe clap once, or maybe 10 or 20 times. You’re in control and can clap to your heart’s desire.” — https://blog.medium.com/show-authors-more-%EF%B8%8F-with-s-c1652279ba01
I think Clapping is a big bold bet on a fairer and more accurate system. I like it. It compensates writers based off of the number of claps they receive.
HOLD UP.
But these are not just 1:1 claps. Instead, each clap is weighted by “clapper.” For someone, who, in general claps a lot at everything — each clap is worth incrementally less.
Will this work? I am not sure. But I appreciate Medium’s commitment to creating a better system — because the current system for writing sucks and is motivated solely on click-bait.
Originally published at gonen.blog.
By jordangonen on August 23, 2017.
Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.