Medium Acquires Projector, a Collaborative, Multimedia Design Platform

Summary

Medium has acquired Projector, a multimedia design platform, to enhance its creator tools and integrate Projector's technology and team into its core experience.

Abstract

Medium has announced the acquisition of Projector, a collaborative multimedia design platform that has gained popularity since its launch in the summer of 2020. The platform is known for its use in creating various multimedia content, including presentations and social media graphics, and has attracted a diverse range of creators. The acquisition brings on board two seasoned tech leaders: Trevor O’Brien, who becomes Medium's Chief Product Officer, and Luke Millar, the new VP of Engineering. Both have extensive experience from companies like Coda, Twitter, YouTube, and Microsoft. Medium's decision to acquire Projector aligns with its mission to empower idea and story sharing with elegant tools. While Projector.com will be sunset in March 2022, Medium plans to integrate Projector's features to enhance the creator experience on its platform.

Opinions

The Medium team is excited about the acquisition, viewing it as an opportunity to innovate and build powerful tools for creators.
The ethos of Projector is seen as highly compatible with Medium's mission of empowering people through elegant tools.
The technologies of both companies are considered complementary, suggesting a synergistic potential in the integration.
The decision to sunset Projector.com as a standalone service reflects a strategic focus on enhancing Medium's platform rather than maintaining separate entities.
There is an anticipation of a positive reception to the integration of Projector features into Medium's toolset, with promises of more details to come.

Medium Acquires Projector, a Collaborative, Multimedia Design Platform

I’m excited to announce today that we’ve acquired Projector, a collaborative, multimedia design platform, whose talented team has joined Medium to innovate on the core Medium experience and build amazing tools for creators.

Projector launched in the summer of 2020 and is used for everything from presentations to social media stories to newsletter graphics. They’ve built a strong following with thousands of creators big and small.

With the Projector team come two experienced product and engineering leaders. Trevor O’Brien, co-founder and CEO of Projector, has previously led product teams at Coda, Twitter, and YouTube. He will join Medium as Chief Product Officer and have a seat on our board of directors. Luke Millar, co-founder and VP of Engineering at Projector, has led engineering teams at Twitter, Shift, and Microsoft. He will join Medium as VP of Engineering.

From my earliest conversations with the Projector team, I found their ethos very in line with Medium’s — empowering people to share ideas and stories through elegant tools. And our technologies are complementary. I truly look forward to integrating our teams and expertise to bring Medium to the next level.

Projector is an impressive, growing platform, but we do not plan to continue operating projector.com as a standalone service. It will continue to function through March of 2022, at which point we will be sunsetting the platform. Read more from Trevor on that here.

We’ll be integrating some Projector features into our toolset to uplevel the creator experience; more specifics to share on this soon.