New Features Medium Needs, Like, Yesterday

It’s all about gamification nowadays.

Long introduction short, I love Medium and would love it even more if these features were available.

Plus, I’m pretty sure some of them would help with readers’ engagement.

Here we clap:

#1 — The 1,000,000 claps badge

Some Medium members use Chrome extensions to get advanced statistics and follow their milestones. Even some publications do it.

Wouldn’t it be great to have badges on our Medium profiles, or at least emails from Medium, celebrating — for example — 100 stories published, 1,000 fans, 10,000 views, 100,000 reads, or 1,000,000 claps?

I would fancy a 1,000,000 claps badge!

And even though I have no idea how many claps I have received since the beginning of my Medium adventures, you can help me reach 1,000,000 by clapping for this article!

#2 — The streak feature

According to Jorge Mazal (former CPO of the language learning app Duolingo) in Lenny’s Newsletter, “the streak feature is one of Duolingo’s most powerful engagement mechanics.”

We NEED a streak feature for Medium.

I want a badge on my profile that says, “this writer has published at least one story a week for the last 72 weeks.” Daily wouldn’t work, and monthly is too easy, but weekly seems like the right frequency to make it challenging while still achievable.

The info doesn’t need to be public; as a writer, I would find it motivating to see my streak status with my stats. And Medium could even let writers decide which frequency they want to use. It would be a great help to build a writing habit.

But the biggest win would be a streak feature for readers. Based on the Duolingo and thousands of mobile games experience, it would likely increase readers’ engagement. I’m ready to bet my Medium earnings on this!

#3 — Medium Circle

I would love to know who are my most faithful readers. I (sort of) know, but I would love to see a graphic representation. And the data — because I love data, as you might have guessed.

There’s something similar called Twitter circle working for … Twitter. Here’s the description taken from their FAQs: “it works by grabbing your likes, retweets, and tweet mentions of other users and using an algorithm it detects who you mostly engage with. It then generates a circle image […] representing your Twitter interaction circle, also known as Twitter circle of friends.”

The best would be to have the Medium Circle based on reading time, but this isn’t public information — at the moment. However, claps and comments are public and could easily be used to measure readers’ engagement with one writer’s content.

#4 — I would pay for this feature on Medium

Don’t be shy! I know you tried. It’s the first thing I did after I published my first article; I tried to clap for it.

But it didn’t work.

How much are you ready to pay for the option to clap for your articles?

(this last one was a joke!)

Features for the readers

I presented these features from a writer’s point of view, but I would enjoy them as a reader even more.

• Badges for reading 100, 1,000, and 10,000 stories. Commenter Badges. Clapper Badges. “You clapped 10,000 times on Medium. Thank you for supporting our writers.”
• Same for the Medium Circle. I’d be interested to know which writers I am reading the most.
• And don’t get me started again on the streak concept. I would make extra sure to log in to Medium daily and read for at least five minutes to maintain my streak!

Conclusion — Medium Wrapped?

Maybe it’s too complicated to have some of this information on demand, but it could work monthly(?). Or at least yearly, following the model of the many applications providing a year in-review to their users.

I’m even ready to pay an extra $5 to get my Medium Wrapped at the end of the year!

What’s your favorite feature? Vote in the comments!

PS: Tagging Tony Stubblebine because he has been responsive to writers’ queries since he became CEO. Thank you for listening to us.