Medium is an American on the internet publishing platform created by Evan Williams and introduced in August 2012. It can be owned by A Medium Corporation.[2] The platform is an illustration of social journalism, aquiring a hybrid selection of beginner and Specialist folks and publications, or unique blogs or publishers on Medium,[3] and is particularly on a regular basis viewed as a site host.
Williams, Formerly co-founder of Blogger and Twitter,[4] in the beginning formulated Medium as a method to publish writings and paperwork for a longer time than Twitter's 140-character (now 280-character) maximum.
In March 2021, Medium declared a transform in its publishing approach and enterprise model, reducing its have publications and raising assist of impartial writers.[5]
Record
2012–2016
Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder and previous CEO, developed Medium to inspire users to develop posts extended as opposed to then 140-character limit of Twitter. When it released in 2012, Williams said, "There is been less development toward raising the standard of what is actually made."[6]
By April 2013, Williams claimed there have been 30 full-time staff members focusing on the platform,[seven] like a vacancy for any "Storyteller" role,[eight] and that it was having "98 percent" of his time.[seven] By August, Williams documented that the web page was however tiny, although he was continue to optimistic about this, stating "We try to make it as simple as feasible for Individuals who have thoughtful matters to state".[9]
Medium has long been concentrating on optimizing the time readers commit studying the internet site (one.5 million several hours in March 2015), instead of maximizing the scale of its viewers.[10][eleven] In 2015, Williams criticized the normal web website traffic metric of special visitors as "a hugely volatile and meaningless range for what we're trying to do".[eleven] According to the corporation, as of Could 2017, Medium.com experienced sixty million unique regular visitors.[twelve]
Medium taken care of an editorial Office staffed by Specialist editors and writers, had various Other people signed on as contractors and served to be a publisher for numerous publications. Matter operated from Medium Headquarters in San Francisco and was nominated for the 2015 National Journal Award.[13] In May well 2015, Medium produced deep cuts to its editorial finances forcing layoffs at dozens of publications hosted within the System.[14] Quite a few publications still left the System.
In 2017, Medium launched paywalled written content available only to subscribers.[fifteen] In 2017, Medium started shelling out authors depending on exactly how much consumers expressed their appreciation for it via a like button which Every single person could activate several situations.[16] The components for compensation was before long adapted to also include things like the amount of time viewers invested looking at, Along with the usage of the like button.[17]