5 ms·

Medium's Evan Williams to Publishers: Your Website Is Toast

40 points by phodo 11y ago

joelrunyon 11y ago
I would like to know he who's defining as a publisher. I think there's a large market of indie publishers who will continue to do well of their site & using things like medium.com as an outlet or satelite outreach. I think it's the newspapers that have bigger problems. Also, it's a pet peeve of mine when they proclaim something is dead and then when pushed for details on how their service is going to solve it - they say "oh, don't worry, trust us." For example, this exchange: > Battelle: How am I going to make money on Medium? > Williams: Not right now. We haven’t solved that problem quite yet. We will. We’re not going to invent some new way to make money from publishing. Will do turnkey premium-content option–with a paywall. We’ll also enable advertising. You can do branded/sponsored content on Medium, but there are no tools yet. We will have them, though. Okay, so there's no way to make money off of Medium right now - got it. Then, he immediately goes on to say: > If you’re starting something today, within a year, you’ll make more money on Medium than you would publishing on your own. Really? After you just told me that you can't make money on medium? I get that you need to paint the picture of the future where your product solves every little problem, but that seemed a little over the top. And yes, I get it. Williams is much more successful than me and has done a lot more exits, but from his work, it seems like he's very good at building platforms, and infrastructure, but the monetization methods (for the users), isn't really there.
WA 11y ago
Q: How am I going to make money on Medium? A: Not right now. We haven’t solved that problem quite yet. [...] Will do turnkey premium-content option–with a paywall. We’ll also enable advertising. So what's the benefit of Medium over the website of my newspaper, where the newspaper has 100% control of the appearance, content, advertisers, additional revenue streams and so on? Furthermore: I don't read that many magazines or newspapers. But when I do, I make the conscious decision to read a specific magazine or newspaper, because they have a certain opinion on things I'd like to know about. Medium blends all of this in some uni-branded way and at the end of the day, people don't care about the publisher/brand anymore. The last time you bought something on eBay or Aamzon Marketplace, do you know the actual shop's name within the marketplace? Probably not. This is not desirable for publishers and thus, I don't believe that Medium will be the future. It's merely an experiment for publishers to play with, to get more traffic to their own websites (frequently you see the last paragraph stating "first appeared on wired.com" or whatever). Creating content on Medium is easier than doing your own website. So is getting readers. Once the platform is even more crowded, the readers won't come themselves. You need to actively market your content and then the question is: Why would you market Medium's platform instead of your own?
- espadrine 11y ago
  They (Medium) hope to change the granularity of publications from “subscribed to a newspaper” to “subscribed to a journalist” with a free (Patreon?) / ad / paywall choice for journalists. Of course, they have not really solved the issue of investigative journalism, the risk of which requires deeper pockets and the backing of a well-renowned organization such as Reuters, NYT, … to get you out of difficult situations. They do not have a solution implemented either. They have yet to meet the issues of ad blockers, aggressive or intrusive ads, privacy, or how to pick a premium price that matches the ad revenue that would otherwise be generated. While Evan Williams cited Facebook, he also dismissed search (and searchability), which is unwise. Facebook's largest issue is precisely that. People tend not to find content they are interested in, and they struggle to tweak their stream's algorithm to fix that. All in all, the newspapers they aim to disrupt have a head start of about five years, and what they consider their real competition are struggling on problems they have not faced yet.
- privong 11y ago
  I agree. > Medium blends all of this in some uni-branded way and at the end of the day, people don't care about the publisher/brand anymore. > Once the platform is even more crowded, the readers won't come themselves. You need to actively market your content and then the question is: Why would you market Medium's platform instead of your own? I have read a number of things on medium, but to be honest, I couldn't remember who wrote most of them. The homogeneous design, while visually appealing and easy to read, means I rarely remember whose blog I was reading on medium. The lack of identity in the design seems like it would impede branding and marketing. Which then means it's going to be tough to make money, even if they add in paywall, advertising, etc.
  - mercer 11y ago
    I think Blendle is on the right path here, moreso than Medium. They offer a decent uni-branded layout (although I prefer Medium's), but allow tweaks based on the source. I think Apple's News app does the same thing. I can often recognize the source newspaper/magazine despite staying within Blendle's interface (similar to how one could recognize the New Yorker just from the typography). The one thing I'd like Blendle to add, but maybe they did so already, is the ability to follow journalists. A number of my friends, for example, are freelancers and publish in multiple publications.
hownottowrite 11y ago
Two Words: Editorial Oversight
aeden 11y ago
Ironic that the interview is on Forbes' website. You know, the one that is toast.
pmontra 11y ago
The only difference I see between Medium and any newspaper site is the number of editors. They say that 300,000 people published on Medium, a newspaper has a much smaller number of writers. I know that such a scale could change many things but I get to Medium by a search on Google, links on HN,FB and similar services, exactly the same way I get to a random newspaper article or blog page. Content has been unbundled and Medium is not special in that regard. Am I missing something?
umziehennachbar 11y ago
Let the interviewee talk freely and make himself sound messianic and stupid
ececconi 11y ago
I think the problem with medium is that it really markets to the self-congratulatory generation. I've read some really good articles on it, but so much of it is a product of a generation who expected the world and were upset when their expectations weren't met.
- jqm 11y ago
  While occasionally happening on a good article, to be fair, there is a lot of junk on Medium. So much so that I often choose to skip Medium articles posted on hacker news because my experience is they are very often quickly written shallow junk.
mswen 11y ago
I recently started my own site http://computationalimagination.com http://computationalimagination.com for branded writing and interviews. I absolutely wouldn't consider publishing on medium. I just don't see any benefit to giving up control and branding. Any consistent audience that I build is mine with clear branding not: "Oh what was that good article I read on Medium the other day? The author, hmm Mike something or other?" As a reader I never start at Medium - the only way I ever read something there is through references from HN or reddit
mark_l_watson 11y ago
As a general philosophy, I like fine grained production of content. That is, lots of small independent developers, publishers, writers, etc. For somethings, like giving Google specific permissions to make my life easier, I am willing to go with huge companies when I want things like Google Now to work. It is worth the privacy hit (sometimes) to have voice interfaces to my calendar, what music I want to listen to, generating quick notes, warnings of air flight delays, etc. But, for content, I like to go to the sources (like democracynow.org) not the aggregators. While I enjoy reading some content on Medium, I can't help but think the writers are better off having their own domain and work long term to develop their personal brand. I think that social media like Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter have value for publishing references to your work that is on your site, on your domain. I think of social media as micro-blogging: stuff that is short and doesn't derserve a full length article on your own site. Social media is also great for pointing people to good writing on people's sites. So, I would say go with huge companies (Apple for Siri, Google for Google Now, Microsoft for Cortana) for specific services that have value. For everything else, support small producers.
midgetjones 11y ago
I'm guessing the author meant 'cofounder' and not 'confounder'. Although that might be factually correct as well.
Bjorkbat 11y ago
Medium is pretty cool, I've actually intentionally visited a few times just to check it some stories on their front page. Still, there's far too much noise in a platform that hosts so much published content. Of course, I could "follow" a group's collected writings, but it just isn't the same as reading from a publisher's actual, custom-branded, web presence. I mean, take Rock Paper Shotgun (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/). For those who don't know, they're an online news blog covering games with a special balance between the mainstream and the indie and a certain taste that I can't quite put my finger on. Medium is an awful, awful fit for these guys. It just doesn't have the right style to fit their needs. And he did go on to mention that there will be other platforms, naturally, but how many? How many will it take to satisfy the wild originality of the collective internet? But whatever. Unfortunately an easy tactic for a startup to gain publicity is for their CEO to say something mildly controversial. Not something smart per-say, just controversial.
beatpanda 11y ago
Does anyone remember when we were talking about futures in tech that weren't dystopian nightmares?

40 points by phodo 11y ago

I would like to know he who's defining as a publisher. I think there's a large market of indie publishers who will continue to do well of their site & using things like medium.com as an outlet or satelite outreach. I think it's the newspapers that have bigger problems. Also, it's a pet peeve of mine when they proclaim something is dead and then when pushed for details on how their service is going to solve it - they say "oh, don't worry, trust us." For example, this exchange: > Battelle: How am I going to make money on Medium? > Williams: Not right now. We haven’t solved that problem quite yet. We will. We’re not going to invent some new way to make money from publishing. Will do turnkey premium-content option–with a paywall. We’ll also enable advertising. You can do branded/sponsored content on Medium, but there are no tools yet. We will have them, though. Okay, so there's no way to make money off of Medium right now - got it. Then, he immediately goes on to say: > If you’re starting something today, within a year, you’ll make more money on Medium than you would publishing on your own. Really? After you just told me that you can't make money on medium? I get that you need to paint the picture of the future where your product solves every little problem, but that seemed a little over the top. And yes, I get it. Williams is much more successful than me and has done a lot more exits, but from his work, it seems like he's very good at building platforms, and infrastructure, but the monetization methods (for the users), isn't really there.

WA 11y ago

Q: How am I going to make money on Medium? A: Not right now. We haven’t solved that problem quite yet. [...] Will do turnkey premium-content option–with a paywall. We’ll also enable advertising. So what's the benefit of Medium over the website of my newspaper, where the newspaper has 100% control of the appearance, content, advertisers, additional revenue streams and so on? Furthermore: I don't read that many magazines or newspapers. But when I do, I make the conscious decision to read a specific magazine or newspaper, because they have a certain opinion on things I'd like to know about. Medium blends all of this in some uni-branded way and at the end of the day, people don't care about the publisher/brand anymore. The last time you bought something on eBay or Aamzon Marketplace, do you know the actual shop's name within the marketplace? Probably not. This is not desirable for publishers and thus, I don't believe that Medium will be the future. It's merely an experiment for publishers to play with, to get more traffic to their own websites (frequently you see the last paragraph stating "first appeared on wired.com" or whatever). Creating content on Medium is easier than doing your own website. So is getting readers. Once the platform is even more crowded, the readers won't come themselves. You need to actively market your content and then the question is: Why would you market Medium's platform instead of your own?

espadrine 11y ago
They (Medium) hope to change the granularity of publications from “subscribed to a newspaper” to “subscribed to a journalist” with a free (Patreon?) / ad / paywall choice for journalists. Of course, they have not really solved the issue of investigative journalism, the risk of which requires deeper pockets and the backing of a well-renowned organization such as Reuters, NYT, … to get you out of difficult situations. They do not have a solution implemented either. They have yet to meet the issues of ad blockers, aggressive or intrusive ads, privacy, or how to pick a premium price that matches the ad revenue that would otherwise be generated. While Evan Williams cited Facebook, he also dismissed search (and searchability), which is unwise. Facebook's largest issue is precisely that. People tend not to find content they are interested in, and they struggle to tweak their stream's algorithm to fix that. All in all, the newspapers they aim to disrupt have a head start of about five years, and what they consider their real competition are struggling on problems they have not faced yet.
privong 11y ago
I agree. > Medium blends all of this in some uni-branded way and at the end of the day, people don't care about the publisher/brand anymore. > Once the platform is even more crowded, the readers won't come themselves. You need to actively market your content and then the question is: Why would you market Medium's platform instead of your own? I have read a number of things on medium, but to be honest, I couldn't remember who wrote most of them. The homogeneous design, while visually appealing and easy to read, means I rarely remember whose blog I was reading on medium. The lack of identity in the design seems like it would impede branding and marketing. Which then means it's going to be tough to make money, even if they add in paywall, advertising, etc.
- mercer 11y ago
  I think Blendle is on the right path here, moreso than Medium. They offer a decent uni-branded layout (although I prefer Medium's), but allow tweaks based on the source. I think Apple's News app does the same thing. I can often recognize the source newspaper/magazine despite staying within Blendle's interface (similar to how one could recognize the New Yorker just from the typography). The one thing I'd like Blendle to add, but maybe they did so already, is the ability to follow journalists. A number of my friends, for example, are freelancers and publish in multiple publications.

hownottowrite 11y ago

Two Words: Editorial Oversight

aeden 11y ago

Ironic that the interview is on Forbes' website. You know, the one that is toast.

pmontra 11y ago

The only difference I see between Medium and any newspaper site is the number of editors. They say that 300,000 people published on Medium, a newspaper has a much smaller number of writers. I know that such a scale could change many things but I get to Medium by a search on Google, links on HN,FB and similar services, exactly the same way I get to a random newspaper article or blog page. Content has been unbundled and Medium is not special in that regard. Am I missing something?

umziehennachbar 11y ago

Let the interviewee talk freely and make himself sound messianic and stupid

ececconi 11y ago

I think the problem with medium is that it really markets to the self-congratulatory generation. I've read some really good articles on it, but so much of it is a product of a generation who expected the world and were upset when their expectations weren't met.

jqm 11y ago
While occasionally happening on a good article, to be fair, there is a lot of junk on Medium. So much so that I often choose to skip Medium articles posted on hacker news because my experience is they are very often quickly written shallow junk.

mswen 11y ago

I recently started my own site http://computationalimagination.com http://computationalimagination.com for branded writing and interviews. I absolutely wouldn't consider publishing on medium. I just don't see any benefit to giving up control and branding. Any consistent audience that I build is mine with clear branding not: "Oh what was that good article I read on Medium the other day? The author, hmm Mike something or other?" As a reader I never start at Medium - the only way I ever read something there is through references from HN or reddit

mark_l_watson 11y ago

As a general philosophy, I like fine grained production of content. That is, lots of small independent developers, publishers, writers, etc. For somethings, like giving Google specific permissions to make my life easier, I am willing to go with huge companies when I want things like Google Now to work. It is worth the privacy hit (sometimes) to have voice interfaces to my calendar, what music I want to listen to, generating quick notes, warnings of air flight delays, etc. But, for content, I like to go to the sources (like democracynow.org) not the aggregators. While I enjoy reading some content on Medium, I can't help but think the writers are better off having their own domain and work long term to develop their personal brand. I think that social media like Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter have value for publishing references to your work that is on your site, on your domain. I think of social media as micro-blogging: stuff that is short and doesn't derserve a full length article on your own site. Social media is also great for pointing people to good writing on people's sites. So, I would say go with huge companies (Apple for Siri, Google for Google Now, Microsoft for Cortana) for specific services that have value. For everything else, support small producers.

midgetjones 11y ago

I'm guessing the author meant 'cofounder' and not 'confounder'. Although that might be factually correct as well.

Bjorkbat 11y ago

Medium is pretty cool, I've actually intentionally visited a few times just to check it some stories on their front page. Still, there's far too much noise in a platform that hosts so much published content. Of course, I could "follow" a group's collected writings, but it just isn't the same as reading from a publisher's actual, custom-branded, web presence. I mean, take Rock Paper Shotgun (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/). For those who don't know, they're an online news blog covering games with a special balance between the mainstream and the indie and a certain taste that I can't quite put my finger on. Medium is an awful, awful fit for these guys. It just doesn't have the right style to fit their needs. And he did go on to mention that there will be other platforms, naturally, but how many? How many will it take to satisfy the wild originality of the collective internet? But whatever. Unfortunately an easy tactic for a startup to gain publicity is for their CEO to say something mildly controversial. Not something smart per-say, just controversial.

beatpanda 11y ago

Does anyone remember when we were talking about futures in tech that weren't dystopian nightmares?