Summary

The creator of Smedian and Signal has decided to shut down both platforms due to financial constraints and operational limitations, focusing efforts on the growth potential of ManyStories.

Abstract

After a six-year journey, the founder of Smedian, a tool that facilitated contributions to Medium publications and maintained a leaderboard for Medium publications, has announced its closure. Alongside Smedian, Signal, a tool designed to schedule the sharing of Medium articles on Twitter, has also been discontinued due to Twitter's policy restrictions that prevented its scaling. The decision to shut down these services was necessitated by financial pressures and the need to prioritize the most promising project under the Penname umbrella, ManyStories. The founder expressed regret for the abrupt closure, acknowledging the lack of prior notice to users and the personal attachment to the projects. Despite the closures, the founder remains optimistic about ManyStories' potential to assist writers in achieving widespread distribution and accessing future clients.

Opinions

The founder acknowledges the utility of Smedian for writers and editors on Medium.
Signal's shutdown is attributed to Twitter's policies that limited its expansion.
The decision to close was financially driven and made after considerable delay.
There is an evident emotional attachment to the projects and a sense of responsibility towards the users.
The founder is committed to the future development and success of ManyStories.
An appeal is made to the community for continued support, particularly for ManyStories.com.

Shutting Down Smedian & Signal

Long live Penname & ManyStories

After six years, I have decided to shut down Smedian, the platform that made it incredibly easy for writers to request to contribute to Medium publications and for publications to grow their content teams. Smedian also provided the source of truth for the leaderboard of thousands of publications on Medium.

The following is a quick message about why I’ve arrived at this decision.

Read: Smedian: The Tool All Medium Editors & Writers Needed. Read: Introducing Signal by Smedian

Unfortunately, I’ve also been forced to shutter Signal for operational reasons as Twitter’s policies would not allow me to scale it beyond its current feature set.

Introducing Signal by Smedian

Schedule your Medium articles to be shared to Twitter periodically — a better Buffer for Medium stories.

medium.com

Given financial constraints I needed to abruptly shut it, along with everything under Penname that did not have a path to scale and profitability, down. After 6 years since the launch of Smedian, and the start of the Penname umbrella, the only one that remains is ManyStories.

ManyStories has an immense amount of potential for helping writers gain mass distribution as well as access to clients in the future, so I will continue to support that. I needed to shut everything down in order to focus on the most beneficial and most promising for all stakeholders: ManyStories.com.

As much as I wish I could have given more notice to users and customers, I did not have the bandwidth in my current personal and work life to carry that out before yet another billing cycle passed. I had delayed this step for too long, and it was time to pull the plug on these projects that I loved and avidly used myself.

I thank you and everyone who used and supported these services, and I hope you will continue to support Penname as we figure out the future, leading with ManyStories.com.