{"id":8481,"date":"2021-03-25T11:14:51","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T15:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/?p=8481"},"modified":"2021-03-25T11:52:16","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T15:52:16","slug":"linked-the-mess-at-medium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2021\/03\/25\/linked-the-mess-at-medium\/","title":{"rendered":"Linked: The Mess at Medium"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:1220,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.theverge.com\\\/2021\\\/3\\\/24\\\/22349175\\\/medium-layoffs-union-evan-williams-blogger-twitter-subscription&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20250625180259\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.theverge.com\\\/2021\\\/3\\\/24\\\/22349175\\\/medium-layoffs-union-evan-williams-blogger-twitter-subscription&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-11-03 19:02:36&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-03 03:21:33&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-09 04:08:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-14 05:09:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-19 05:41:50&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-24 05:20:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-03 03:22:04&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-08 02:35:49&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-12 21:32:57&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-17 18:03:59&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-22 11:59:19&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-27 04:13:58&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-31 21:10:18&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-05 14:38:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-10 06:26:55&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-14 22:03:07&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-19 13:38:12&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-24 05:41:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-03 01:35:13&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-07 20:02:44&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-12 13:45:55&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-17 07:07:45&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-21 23:51:40&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-26 15:54:09&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-31 06:27:26&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-31 06:27:26&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/3\/24\/22349175\/medium-layoffs-union-evan-williams-blogger-twitter-subscription\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Via The Verge<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>Worse, the data suggested that Medium\u2019s original journalism was not converting free readers to paid subscribers. Surprisingly, what seemed to convert readers most reliably were random stories on the digital content farm that had sprung up around its high-gloss publications.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>People were largely not finding these stories from journalists or even from Medium\u2019s own recommendation algorithms, which staffers said were ineffective in predictably driving traffic. Instead, like most publications in the platform era, Medium\u2019s traffic successes came from search engines and social networks.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cHits would be made either because we managed to get a prime spot on Google or because something made it big on Facebook,\u201d a former employee who worked on the tech platform told me.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It\u2019s always easy to pass criticism when you\u2019re on the outside looking in and I don\u2019t really care if Medium survives or doesn\u2019t but let\u2019s think of the writers here. I\u2019m not talking about the major media blogs who hung up their CMS and identities and moved all-in to Medium for the convenience or desperation but let\u2019s talk about the people my size who published to Medium. They took hours out of their week to publish on Medium and the site will die and take their stories with it.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve started to publish to a txt file on my computer before I send it out to the Internet. You should do the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, Medium and other platforms have a feel to them and part of that is design and the other part is software. Medium differentiated itself in a few ways and a Medium blog is immediately identifiable as such. This means that while the text can live on elsewhere in a text file, a blogger\/wordpress page or your own hosted website, it will lose the feel. Similar to publishing to paperback versus hardcover, the \u2018medium\u2019 (pun intended) matters. I would be remiss if I didn\u2019t mention that my writing style changes depending on the medium. We all do that, even subconsciously.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve started publishing some things to Revue, Twitter\u2019s email platform and I write differently there than I do to my blog.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWon\u2019t you think of the publishers?\u201d Comes to mind. I hope Medium dies swiftly with options to export the written works. I don\u2019t want them to die at all but if they do, it should be a band-aid yanking off and not a glacier slowly melting.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It is a shame how things went for Medium but like Blogger and eventually, WordPress, these products will die and your data will die with it. This is why owning your data is so important and only using services that support data portability, open source and standards is always going to win on an infinite timescale.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Via The Verge:\u00a0 Worse, the data suggested that Medium\u2019s original journalism was not converting free readers to paid&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2021-03-25T15:15:00Z","apple_news_api_id":"5c682888-3b06-499e-809e-08393cac35e1","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2021-03-25T15:52:24Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXGgoiDsGSZ6Angg5PKw14Q","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-linked","7":"cs-entry","8":"cs-video-wrap"},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-2cN","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5846,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2016\/06\/07\/linked-mediums-latest-intriguing-publishing-experiment\/","url_meta":{"origin":8481,"position":0},"title":"Linked: &#8220;Medium\u2019s latest intriguing publishing experiment&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"June 7, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"via SixColors: Medium\u2019s membership program, which it\u2019s carefully not labeling a subscription, is available to its early partners. It lets a publisher set a single, recurring monthly tier, and Medium collects the money. A publisher can mark specific posts for members only. Medium will charge a 20% fee, but pass\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8501,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2021\/04\/15\/technology-substack-is-just-following-in-mediums-footsteps\/","url_meta":{"origin":8481,"position":1},"title":"Technology: Substack is just Following in Medium&#8217;s footsteps","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 15, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Nieman Lab: Citing the success of publications like The Charlotte Ledger and Toronto\u2019s City Hall Watcher, Substack has announced it will spend $1 million to support a new group of local news writers on the platform. The email newsletter platform joins other tech companies \u2014 Google and Facebook most\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6699,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2017\/02\/27\/linked-medium-shifts\/","url_meta":{"origin":8481,"position":2},"title":"Linked: Medium Shifts","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"February 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"via Medium Blog: Upon further reflection, it\u2019s clear that the broken system is ad-driven media on the internet. It simply doesn\u2019t serve people. In fact, it\u2019s not designed to. The vast majority of articles, videos, and other \u201ccontent\u201d we all consume on a daily basis is paid for\u200a\u2014\u200adirectly or indirectly\u200a\u2014\u200aby\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6962,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2017\/08\/08\/linked-how-facebook-is-making-membership-a-prerequisite-to-everyday-existence\/","url_meta":{"origin":8481,"position":3},"title":"Linked: &#8220;How Facebook Is Making Membership a Prerequisite to Everyday Existence&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"August 8, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"via The Bold Italic(which is now also a medium blog\u2026the good ones keep switching to this for-profit platform): However, City CarShare was recently bought by a corporation, Getaround. And Getaround built its platform on top of Facebook. So when I went to migrate my account over to them, I found\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5860,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2016\/07\/04\/linked-medium-a-publishers-perspective\/","url_meta":{"origin":8481,"position":4},"title":"Linked: &#8220;Medium: A Publisher&#8217;s Perspective&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"July 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"via MondayNote: Our findings were actually consistent with those of Medium\u2019s own data scientist Mike Sall who notes, in this post: Overall, 74% of posts are under 3 minutes long and 94% are under 6 minutes long. Mike Sall and his team ended up determining that the optimal length for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7045,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2017\/09\/04\/linked-why-i-left-medium-and-moved-back-to-my-own-domain\/","url_meta":{"origin":8481,"position":5},"title":"Linked: &#8220;Why I left Medium and moved back to my own domain&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"September 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"via Arslan.io: So here I am. I\u2019ve moved all my Medium posts to WordPress.com (and selected the plan to use my own domain). There are several reasons why I\u2019ve opted for this (which might be coming odd for some of you), but the number one reason was that I didn\u2019t\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}