Medium

Five New Year Resolutions for Medium

The power in Medium’s hands to make this place a bit better still

It’s a New Year, it’s a time for making bold statements about what we want to do in the year ahead, how we want to make ourselves better. I see friends talking about getting fit or learning a language or going travelling more. I see people here challenging themselves to be better writers, or more successful writers. A New Year (at least in this part of the world) is a good time to take stock of where we are, and see what we can do as humans.

But let’s imagine for a moment. Let’s imagine that this doesn’t just have to apply to humans. Perhaps it could apply to anything that exists and can make decisions, or have decisions made for it. Like soccer teams or corporations. Like ice cream shops or theatre companies. Or do I dare to say it — writing platforms?

There are plenty of people out there with excellent ideas, and probably better understandings of how they can be realised than mine. But in case any of them are reading, and in case any of them hadn’t thought of one or more of these, well maybe then they could take the better ones to Ev Williams above! And to keep it honest, I’ll be checking on the status of these quarterly, in April, July, and November, with a conclusion here in January next year, as well as (I hope) five new resolutions for 2023!

1. Monetisation For More Of The World One thing I love is how many people I know across the world thanks to Medium. I can enjoy people’s experiences from Nevada, Nigeria, and New Zealand, among many more places. And while my friend in Nevada benefits a tiny amount by my reading her work, my friend in Nigeria does not. Is his writing not as good? Not at all. Currently, Medium’s Partner Program supports just 33 countries, and not all outlying territories. That is roughly 10+ countries left out (depending on how you count them). Is it too much to ask that more of the good folks in India, Brazil, South Africa — indeed, practically everywhere outside of Europe, North America, Australasia, and a few outliers in Asia get to participate? Whether it is Stripe or Medium, this should not be an impossibility — let’s see if we can get 15 more by March, maybe?
2. A Better App / Site Experience I love the fact that I can post from my phone. But I don’t love that I can’t post with any publication easily. I love the fact that I can get something to read from it on a bus or waiting for a prescription, but I frequently wonder could this be better done. I think a number of us who try to be more sophisticated find difficulties. Editing already published articles doesn’t seem to happen; tagging doesn’t appear while writing; the editing tools are limited; you cannot publish through a publication; Links don’t work right; notifications are limited and often delayed; this weird “reader has closed comments thing that I can’t find the opportunity to do / avoid, etc. Many folks who are more astute on matters technical at this have written about it already. But you can also decide whether you want to read a piece at random or from a group or person you follow far easier. You can search tags and see which one has most followers. It has a lot of good to match those problems. Perhaps we could see a blend of the best of both? I know app programming is tough — that’s why I don’t do it. But maybe we could shoot for June to see an update to one or both that would solve a couple of these things?
3. More Love For The Publications So, I know we are going towards the whole Tags thing — I am not necessarily against it. But so many people have put in so much time to developing some really great publications on here. There are a few that are significantly better than supposedly respectable online journals, and physical print magazines — both in terms of content and editing. It feels (or at least it felt when announced) that Publications are getting shunted off into the night, While I like the idea that things can get better mileage when self published, the publications should be really treasured by Medium. These are where writers are nourished, where readers are treated, and where Medium is elevated above most other writing platforms I have seen. And the people who run the bigger ones should also be rewarded, because their work develops everything on here. So is it too much to ask — some more priority for the publications? Again, I am not the expert on these things, but I feel it is not too much to ask that by September we could see something done to give the writer created publications more prominence
4. A More Transparent Algorithm I feel a little conflicted about this because I appreciate how difficult it is to work these things out in a fair way, and also know that there is far more literal calculus involved in this than anyone who isn’t a calculus head will feel comfortable with. But it does feel less clear than this ready reckoner would suggest. Most recently, I had a piece do particularly well with external readers than internal readers — it happens, I am not unhappy once it is getting some readership. It was dribbling along perfectly fine in terms of income — a penny here, a nickel there — until suddenly on December 22nd, a day of a single view and no reported reading, it earned $1.62. I mean yaay money, but why then? It baffles me no end. Not just this way, either. Other pieces I have seen painted with highlighter on a day, by multiple readers (and always by the generous David Perlmutter!), and yet a grand total of 2s read? It takes me longer just to select one section of the text than that, so how does two or three highlight about 8 times between them and yet read less than 5s? The mind boggles, and it should not. Computers are tough, and I don’t believe that the inviolable rules about how things should be done are all that inviolable to manufactured intelligences, so I appreciate that this will take a lot more time than one might think. But could we get this looked at properly by December? Even a message telling us that it is unfathomable, and the computer says no by then would make everything a little more acceptable.
5. Week Long Free Trials I am not hear to make money, but to develop as a writer, and to experiment — if you want proof, look at my stats and income! But all the same, I would like more readers, and ideally more members. I love the idea of membership, and I think that membership is more likely to have people take on a sense of ownership here. The people I know on here seem very committed when they can be, even if we all complain from time to time. So I started to think how do we get more members. Currently, we have the 5 free reads thing. That is how I was got on board. I read my free reads and I found myself wanting more, so I joined. I started by reading variety of different articles from friend links to pieces on here. That didn’t suck me in though. It was reading articles that I liked the look of coming from non-friend links from Facebook and Twitter. I started reading one, found another, and then another, and suddenly it was April 13th and I was out of links, and there was one more that I NEEDED to read. I was lucky in how I got in, as I was happy just to slug down the freebies and no more prior to that. I think that a great many people would probably be more interested in joining if they had the chance to read for a week for free. I know this is not everyone, but I know that if I am doing that, I am drinking down as many articles to get value for my free trial as possible. At the end of it, I decide if it is worth it or not. I did that with Netflix online, and recently with CBS All Access. But if I get one free, I am not going to invest time or effort in it. I think a free week might convince a lot of people to pull the trigger. And if they are on for a week, maybe the much lauded bounty for writers is something that could actually work, and some one random will decide that they enjoy my work so that they choose to sign nearly half their membership to me! So maybe do a trial Trial? Pick a week and let the world peep in. See if it works. How about that, Medium?

There are many really good things about Medium. I am meeting so many wonderful people on here, reading some excellent writing, learning a lot, getting different perspectives, opening my mind further, and perhaps even becoming a better writer in one or more ways. I am not by any means saying “burn it down”. But, maybe we can hope for things to get better for everyone on here, and some of these above are just a couple of ways that could happen.