Why We Built MediumIn 1999, two friends and I launched Blogger, a simple tool for publishing on the web. Blogs, or “weblogs,” were largely unknown outside a small community of web geeks. The idea that anyone, anywhere, could publish for a global audience seemed radical.Today, we carry the Internet around on pocket-sized devices with more computing power and pixels than we previously had on our desks. We have innumerable options for sharing our deep thoughts or cat photos — with or without a retro filter. And, while it’s easy to trivialize, our collective, casual, everyday shares demonstrate that millions of people have the power of a printing press at their fingertips. (And they use it.) That is an amazing advancement.We love tweets as much as the next person (probably more), but sometimes we long for something meatier. Now that we’ve made sharing information virtually effortless, how do we increase the depth of understanding, while also creating a level playing field that encourages great ideas coming from anywhere? In short, we think that words (still) matter, so we built a better system for sharing them.
In 1999, two friends and I launched Blogger, a simple tool for publishing on the web. Blogs, or “weblogs,” were largely unknown outside a small community of web geeks. The idea that anyone, anywhere, could publish for a global audience seemed radical.
Today, we carry the Internet around on pocket-sized devices with more computing power and pixels than we previously had on our desks. We have innumerable options for sharing our deep thoughts or cat photos — with or without a retro filter. And, while it’s easy to trivialize, our collective, casual, everyday shares demonstrate that millions of people have the power of a printing press at their fingertips. (And they use it.) That is an amazing advancement.
We love tweets as much as the next person (probably more), but sometimes we long for something meatier. Now that we’ve made sharing information virtually effortless, how do we increase the depth of understanding, while also creating a level playing field that encourages great ideas coming from anywhere?
In short, we think that words (still) matter, so we built a better system for sharing them.
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:01 (ten years ago) link
#BOOM
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:02 (ten years ago) link
We love tweets as much as the next person (probably more)
this is a sly way of saying 'your tweets pay me lol'
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:09 (ten years ago) link
while we're on the subject what is up with sulia, what is that
― R'LIAH (goole), Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:16 (ten years ago) link
http://sulia.com/
no street team, swear
it's got that google+esque feel to it
― markers, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:17 (ten years ago) link
i've never heard of it until now
i've only run into cos a couple journos on twitter i follow use it for longer thoughts
― R'LIAH (goole), Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:18 (ten years ago) link
I only seem to see Sulia used by sports journos. It's like a social version of twitlonger, I think?
― polyphonic, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:19 (ten years ago) link
when did web design get so -- so FLAT
all of these sites
― your authentic guitar playing self (elmo argonaut), Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:20 (ten years ago) link
i think we need to unpack two issues here:
- what is this weird blogging metaplatform thing (medium, kinja, etc.)? does it have a future? how does it differ from livejournal?
- why are all the successful posts on medium.com by such awful people? are they just drawn by the bourgeois security blanket of 2012 era web design?
― caek, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:23 (ten years ago) link
something else that might kinda fit here is the whole publishing on linkedin thing that seems to be happening
― markers, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:24 (ten years ago) link
― your authentic guitar playing self (elmo argonaut), Thursday, August 22, 2013 7:20 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
its the new hotness
windows (!) helped make it a thing and now even the new iOS has flat icons
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:32 (ten years ago) link
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/06/12/what-is-the-principle-behind-the-flat-ui-ux-design-being-adopted-by-apple-google-microsoft/
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:33 (ten years ago) link
― R'LIAH (goole), Thursday, August 22, 2013 3:16 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
been wondering abt this too
― lag∞n, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:36 (ten years ago) link
Welcome to Sulia, the Subject-Based Social NetworkSulia is a subject-based social network that connects you to the top social sources on subjects you care about.We all have interests that we're extremely passionate about. Whether it's our family, a sports team, breaking news, Hollywood gossip, a hobby, a career or a political issue, we obsess over our interests everyday.However, with an endless number of sources talking about an endless number of topics, it's nearly impossible to find the best sources to follow across your interests. And, even if you were able to identify the top sources, sifting through all of their content is maddeningly time consuming.We built Sulia to address these problems (which were driving us mad too).Sulia's subject-based structure of social channels connects trusted sources and enthusiasts on shared interests across thousands of subjects, including breaking news and events. How?We use a combination of network managers and sophisticated algorithms to identify the best-regarded sources across thousands of topics. We then dynamically filter content from those sources, regardless of where it's created (a blog, a social network, a media site, through Sulia's publishing system, etc.), into high-quality, realtime social channels. The result is streams of timely content from trusted sources that is always on-topic, readable, and relevant.People use Sulia everyday to discover new sources and engage with their interests. We hope you do too!
gotten the impression some people were getting paid to write there
― lag∞n, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:37 (ten years ago) link
Sulia started out as a list service for Twitter. Then it turned into a filtering service built with Twitter in mind. Last year, it moved away from Twitter and positioned itself as a standalone “subject-based social network.”
http://allthingsd.com/20130723/sulia-says-its-homegrown-social-network-is-growing-raises-6-million/
― polyphonic, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:40 (ten years ago) link
readthat.com
― am0n, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:41 (ten years ago) link
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, August 22, 2013 3:32 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i think flatness is kinda overstated, like ios7 while stripped of a lot of drop shadows and what not isnt really at all flat eg the new parallax effect is all abt rendering depth, its mostly imho a result of trying to fit a lot unnecessarily busy design thing into little phones which has resulted in a much need emphasis on simplicity, truly flat designs for complex things like an operating system say windows are really not that great imho youre left bereft of a lot of useful visual clues, for a simple website its nbd and a lot of websites have been flat all along, like say ilxor.com
― lag∞n, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:49 (ten years ago) link
truly flat designs for complex things like an operating system say windows are really not that great imho
agree but like cmon, there's a definite reaction to fake-leather and taking your notes on fake yellow lined paper happening imo
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 22 August 2013 19:59 (ten years ago) link
i don't think it's bad tbh, maybe i just didn't realize how ubiquitous it was becoming
― your authentic guitar playing self (elmo argonaut), Thursday, 22 August 2013 20:05 (ten years ago) link
sure but the opposite of skeuomorphism isnt necessarily flat and i think that particular bugaboo has overshadowed some more substantial design shifts xp
― lag∞n, Thursday, 22 August 2013 20:07 (ten years ago) link
We rely on multitudes of tools and various products to help us live our lives.
― anky, Friday, 23 August 2013 08:17 (ten years ago) link
However, it is easy to forget that it is not the tools that matter, but the result and outcome of using them.
― anky, Friday, 23 August 2013 08:18 (ten years ago) link
im working on an iphone app at the moment as fate would have it and i was poking around apples documentation where they repeatedly advise against drop shadows in all sorts of situations for ios7 and then look at the keyboard these lil fuckers
http://i.imgur.com/mOXAyMW.png
― lag∞n, Friday, 23 August 2013 13:08 (ten years ago) link
Madrigal, ilx lurker:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/what-is-medium/278965/
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 23 August 2013 13:33 (ten years ago) link
McConlogue and Shih were just blogging, as people have done since the dawn of time.
― lag∞n, Friday, 23 August 2013 14:02 (ten years ago) link
good article, answers a lot of my urgent qs
― caek, Friday, 23 August 2013 17:03 (ten years ago) link
https://medium.com/waho-cooooolllll/94ea348e3345
― lag∞n, Friday, 23 August 2013 17:04 (ten years ago) link
how *is* tasha
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 23 August 2013 17:06 (ten years ago) link
https://medium.com/waho-cooooolllll/3562d432a18b
― markers, Friday, 23 August 2013 17:07 (ten years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/FIa54cQ.png
― 乒乓, Friday, 23 August 2013 17:08 (ten years ago) link
im working on an iphone app at the moment
excited to see what you do for path
― markers, Friday, 23 August 2013 17:08 (ten years ago) link
hah
― lag∞n, Friday, 23 August 2013 17:08 (ten years ago) link
https://medium.com/p/16046aeb2d41Media Moguls: Ted Turner[Note: I wrote this as a senior in university.]
― YOU FOOLS PAY OVER $2.50 for a comic book (forksclovetofu), Friday, 23 August 2013 20:24 (ten years ago) link
is this app.net
― spoons dipped in butter (cozen), Friday, 23 August 2013 20:27 (ten years ago) link
ok here we go https://medium.com/the-web-we-make/b7a98098b342
― caek, Friday, 23 August 2013 20:29 (ten years ago) link
i mean that kind of explains it. i still don't get why everyone on it is so awful.
Hard Knocks, not Harvard.
― diamonddave85, Friday, 23 August 2013 20:42 (ten years ago) link
gross
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-22/twitter-co-creator-ev-williams-stretches-the-medium
― markers, Friday, 23 August 2013 21:04 (ten years ago) link
https://twitter.com/FalseMedium
― your authentic guitar playing self (elmo argonaut), Friday, 23 August 2013 21:09 (ten years ago) link
that's pretty dead on
― YOU FOOLS PAY OVER $2.50 for a comic book (forksclovetofu), Friday, 23 August 2013 21:26 (ten years ago) link
http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/28/buzzfeed-has-a-medium-problem/
― YOU FOOLS PAY OVER $2.50 for a comic book (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 29 August 2013 17:44 (ten years ago) link
pando daily
― HOOS it because...of steen???? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, 29 August 2013 18:12 (ten years ago) link
Creation is not yet available on mobile devices, so even if you can post on the web, you won’t be able to post on your mobile device. We’re working on this.
teh future!!
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 29 August 2013 20:21 (ten years ago) link
https://medium.com/p/4382e09934e
― One burly voice screamed and that was one of many. (forksclovetofu), Friday, 13 September 2013 22:56 (ten years ago) link
haha what is this website https://medium.com/editors-picks/37d58af643bb
― veryupsetmom (harbl), Saturday, 14 September 2013 14:08 (ten years ago) link
on the other hand tho: https://medium.com/p/d7e5d14065f1
― Dora Viola G. I. de Orellana Dysart Plantagenet Tollemache-Tolle (c sharp major), Saturday, 14 September 2013 16:10 (ten years ago) link
these people with infinite wealth could actually do something good for journalism, instead they do things like this, over and over
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 24 March 2021 17:28 (three years ago) link
the people with actual infinite wealth who have arguably succeeded in journalism are the ones who have 1) bought a traditional newspaper 2) given it a ton of money (washington post, la times (although that might not work out)).
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 24 March 2021 17:42 (three years ago) link
stewart bainum jr. is out there trying to buy the tribune co. out from under a vulturous hedge fund so that's at least one +1 for people with infinite wealth as far as I'm concerned
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 24 March 2021 18:18 (three years ago) link
yeah buying newspapers is prob the way to go, the real move imo would be rather than going for one of the real big names instead just buy a ton of other papers and fund them to do good reporting etc
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 24 March 2021 19:17 (three years ago) link
I read that the medium guy could afford to run medium at its current rate of losses for 200 years
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 24 March 2021 20:10 (three years ago) link
Ok ev has extreme growth hacker brain
imagine punting on 700k subscribers because it doesn't represent google-worthy scalehttps://t.co/zAK1ebSP86 pic.twitter.com/VEtg5gmrs9— Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob) March 25, 2021
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 25 March 2021 00:16 (three years ago) link
lol jesus
― lag∞n, Thursday, 25 March 2021 01:11 (three years ago) link
What a ding dong
― Canon in Deez (silby), Thursday, 25 March 2021 01:18 (three years ago) link
700,000 people?!?!
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 25 March 2021 02:09 (three years ago) link
Are you suggesting that is a lot or not a lot
― akm, Thursday, 25 March 2021 05:19 (three years ago) link
i don't know whether it's enough to run an editorial operation (seems like it should be tbqfh) but it's more: who subscribes to medium dot com?!
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 25 March 2021 05:35 (three years ago) link
venturing a guess that 20% were subbing for "cuckold love stor[ies].”
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Thursday, 25 March 2021 06:04 (three years ago) link