Medium’s Fantastic French Acquisition Could Mean Massive Opportunities for Readers and Writers
Imagine if, as a writer, you could blog, write articles, and self-publish ebooks and audiobooks all in one place. Your readers could have access to all of your work, highlight it, comment on it, blog about it, and even acquire more of your work. It’s like a utopia for readers and writers.
Medium acquired a digital book platform based in Paris, France. The platform is called Glose where you can read and acquire and even make comments and notes in ebooks. They also have textbooks and audiobooks.
This acquisition is an extraordinary occurrence. At least I think it is. I don’t know what Medium plans to do for sure, but here are some of my primitive thoughts.
From a reader’s perspective, let’s say they are reading an ebook by Wanda Writer that they found on Glose, and they love it. They could get more books or audio by Wanda Writer if she has any. They could blog about what they read using their Medium blog and spread the word to other readers. They could write an article about what they read and publish it themselves or in a Medium publication.
There are so many possibilities that flow simply from someone reading Wanda Writer’s book or listening to her audiobook, reading her article, or seeing a blog post or something she underlined. This is exellent. From a writer’s point of view, you could have a virtual storefront. All of your books, audio, articles, blogs, comments, highlighting, everything in one place. Amazing!
As users of a platform, we have zero clue what the owners of that platform are up to behind the scenes. Try and guess as much as you want, but you will never figure it out. I’m speculating, but it seems like an incredible opportunity.
This acquisition helps make sense of some of the more recent changes on Medium, such as the new ease with which you can use your profile page as your own blog. Now, anyone can quickly and easily start a blog using the Medium platform.
There seems to me to be a movement toward more open communication between readers and writers. A more “relational” Medium, as Medium has said repeatedly. I am starting to see what they may mean when they use that buzz word.
A more “relational” Medium decreases the distance between readers and writers. The readers start writing more; the writers start reading more. This creates an increase in communication between the two. I think that’s pretty cool.
Most important is the ability to bring the reader and the writer together to communicate and create. Such is the social aspect of social media. Social media as it was intended and at its best.
I am super excited. Not much excites me, so this must be a big deal. I’m sure there are tons of possibilities that haven’t even occurred to me.
My brain is starting to hurt, so I will leave the rest of this creative thinking to the people in charge.
I am looking forward to reading, writing, sharing, and communicating on an even bigger and better Medium.
Au revoir!
Linda Kowalchek is a work in progress and a member of the typewriter generation. She spends her time with her husband and her rescue cats waiting for golf balls to crash through their windows. PSA: Don’t live next to a golf course.