Overview: Content Strategy

Should you blog on dedicated blogging platforms like Medium, or on your Hub? It's not an either/or.

Medium was never something that we would get to define. Instead, it’s turned out to be an endless thought experiment into what publishing on the internet could look like.

We don’t charge for hosting, we never put ads on your content or share your data, and we will only put your story behind the Medium paywall if you choose to take advantage of Medium distribution beyond your followers.... We recommend stories to millions of Medium readers every day on our personalized home page, in our email digests, and in our mob…

Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten.

Blockchain ... creating alternatives to the current corporation owned second layer of the internet... to make quality content truly democratic... Medium ... made itself decentralized... a blockchain with a dedicated token underlying all of the content ... reward content creators... governed only by the rules... But this token would also create an…

I have an obvious incentive to get claps: pretty decent money. ... I can write more polarized headlines... on polarizing topics. I can piggy back on the hot news of the day... write things I don’t actually believe using incendiary language ... Medium has safeguards ... a team of curators ... a policy against abuse that it actually enforces... a t…

the future that Medium founder and CEO Ev Williams sees ... doesn’t include advertising, not even the native advertising that was a key piece of Medium’s plan ... a Spotify-ish model that pools subscribers’ $5 monthly contributions and doles them out to a select group of creators based on how many “claps” the creators get... once they’re in the …

A Mathematical Journey Into How Medium Payment [Probably] Works for Premium Authors

Instagram, Facebook, virtually all news sites… their MO is to keep you on their website for as long as possible... advertisers love  eyeballs.... The scrolling keeps us going... a gravitational force field... takes a lot of energy to escape...premium Medium isn’t an endless feed... It isn’t about keeping us on the website or the app as long as pos…

the most recommended stories on Medium have either to do with startups, life or productivity. Sometimes, all three topics are squeezed in a single story — How to be super productive in your startup and change your life… If we can undo the follower bias, I think everybody becomes a writer and nobody really becomes a celebrity.

the broken system is ad-driven media on the internet... doesn’t serve people... it’s not designed to... “content” we all consume on a daily basis is paid for — directly or indirectly — by corporations who are funding it in order to advance their goals. And it is measured, amplified, and rewarded based on its ability to do that. Period. As a result…

All the BS that’s fit to click. A Medium Collection

The feature enables Medium users to volunteer to translate Medium stories into the language of their choice. Approved translators see a “Translate” button on Medium stories and clicking that button clones the post and seeds the clone with a Google translate version of the story in the language that they select. They then go in and make the Google …

Reposting your blog on LinkedIn and Medium is a no-brainer. Which is precisely the problem - it takes no brains.

By the time Cameron wrote “Orbital Content” in April of 2011, almost all visits to A List Apart and zeldman.com were triggered by tweets and other third-party posts... SO JUST WHY are we afraid of Medium?

"I’m posting different things in different places, not just reposting the same thing over and over" - in response to Shel Holtz and Dave Winer on Medium

Here are 8 tips for using Medium effectively:

Just as you’re about to publish your draft, we’ll suggest a couple tags for you to use based on what you’ve writte... to increase the number of tagged posts on Medium, but also to help users discover the right tags to use... In our algorithm, we use what is called a nearest neighbors approach... to compare posts... representing posts as vector…

publications, where people are carefully curating great content around particular topics, themes, and ideas Here are eleven great publications that you might want to follow today:

Garnish your post with a photo of a cute little kitten and animal-lovers will flock to your button like zombies to a brain smorgasbord... good writing ... does not presently guarantee an audience on Medium... risks becoming a click-bait factory, a lame production line pumping out articles around the same limited themes...it needs to radically i…

the next phase of Medium is about linking writers with brands, with Medium acting as the go-between, vetting creators. Meaning, in part, a native advertising hub filled with long-tail content.... There’s going to be sponsorships and branded dollars on the platform. Our vision is to connect quality creators with brands who may want to work with the…

political polarisation creates groupthink creates more polarisation, which prevents ideas from circulating and developing.... Pumping resources into ensuring one side of US politics is overrepresented on Medium is bad for US politics, and bad for Medium - In response to Influencer Outreach: Progressive Politics (job ad on Medium)

Blogging has never been easier but getting read has never been harder... The problem isn't freedom or openness but distribution... you might post it on Facebook or Google Plus. Your friends might see it ... (though this is largely random) and they might share it ... You might post it on LinkedIn and your network might see it ... and LinkedIn migh…

it’s been recommended over 6,500 times... the problem is this: the article is… crushingly insubstantial... there are dozens of similar pieces churning around Medium at any time: how to listicles, life-hack guides, autodidactic treatises on ‘personal growth’ etc etc... in the spirit of “if you can’t beat them join them”, here is my hastily co…

I am, however, not loving what responses are doing to my profile page. There is value in a response, to be sure, and I don’t want to lose that but when a reader visits my page, it is littered with my responses to other articles — interesting stuff for me and the respondee, not so much for the new reader. - I love responses — I love to respond a…

If you already have a blog, consider posting new or old blog posts on Medium. This is what I do, and it’s helped breathe new life into old work.... - WHY MEDIUM IS GOOD FOR YOUR WRITING CAREER — Personal Growth — Medium

Facebook seems to be giving Notes a reboot... looks like nothing else on the website: It has a clean, white-space-filled design with extravagantly readable type. It looks, in other words, like Medium. - Facebook, Medium, and the Personal Press Release - The Atlantic

A decent long read: on @medium, The Optimal Post is 7 Minutes: "Don’t feel constrained by presumed short attention spans. If you put in the effort, so will your audience." - The Optimal Post is 7 Minutes — Data Lab — Medium

Last week’s edition included 13 links across 3 topics. This week I go the ‘Special Edition’ route and focus on one topic: Medium. 

IN RESPONSE TO: Thanks for sharing this.  “While this makes sense it would make more sense if Medium existed in a vacuum… most authors are prepared to put up with a second-class authoring tool in return for a shot at a first-class audience. ”