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I think Medium can strongly credit its success to Google. Google built blogger to the point where it killed every other blogging platform, and then once they b

I think Medium can strongly credit its success to Google. Google built blogger to the point where it killed every other blogging platform, and then once they became enamored with social and Google Plus they let it languish to the point where it had almost become unusable. Medium's genius was recognizing this empty market that Google had conquered but abandoned, and created what blogger would have been had it continued to be updated for the world of gifs and emojis.

ChuckMcM 10y ago
And then failed to get acquired :-). Only half joking here. I think your analysis is spot on, Google did a great job of consolidating the world into a place you could pull off a single RSS feed and get lots of good content, and then pissed it away. And I think Medium has done an excellent job of stepping into that space. What I find interesting is that Google hasn't done the follow on which is figure out that this team understood the blogging space well and could be a part of a "print" side of Google (much like Youtube is the "video" side of Google). Of course there is that whole Tumblr thing which did poorly under Yahoo!'s care. Sometimes I think it is like playing Milton Bradley's "Battleship" where each effort helps map out a part of the space where there is, and is not, a possible product present.
jordanlev 10y ago
> Google built blogger to the point where it killed every other blogging platform... No they didn't. Wordpress powers some absurd number of all websites (25%-ish). Tumblr is still fairly popular. And Medium of course. What google did do is effectively kill off RSS readers, but that's a different story.
- iamdave 10y ago
  >No they didn't. I'm with this guy. Blogger if anything, brutally assassinated LiveJournal. Unless you're in Russia.