4 ms·

> Medium makes it really easy to post something that looks good across devices etc., and has good sharing integration. That's all. That's... not an easy thing

by oddevan 10y ago

> Medium makes it really easy to post something that looks good across devices etc., and has good sharing integration. That's all. That's... not an easy thing to do. Making anything to do with technology "easy" is no small feat; that Medium was able to do this with as big an incumbent player as WordPress (for example) is an even bigger feat.

rco8786 10y ago
hard != innovative, was OP's point.
- fuzzfactor 10y ago
  OTOH, solving well-established hard problems sometime requires more true innovation than developing new ideas. I prefer to do both.
mgiannopoulos 10y ago
Well they did that by basically limiting what the user can do. The editing options were extremely limited. There was also no customisation until recently. They built a basic-function responsive blog platform. How is that hard?
- giovannibajo1 10y ago
  It's very hard to tell people to use your software that has 1/100th of features of the incumbents but it's done better. Apple did it with iPhone for instance, but normally startups die trying.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    That's because the iPhone didn't have 1/100 the features of competitors -- it had 80/100 of the features, but focused on the 80% that mattered (no "fm radio" or "mobile flash" for example).
  - mgiannopoulos 10y ago
    Imho that was mostly achieved by marketing , not technical innovation (which they claim)
    - Huhty 10y ago
      Also helps a lot with the amount of connections Ev Williams and co have. I would guess that having all the right connections was a huge part of Medium's success, especially really early on. With enough connections you can grow (almost) any half-decent service.
coldtea 10y ago
>That's... not an easy thing to do. Offering something easy to post that's looking good across devices? Gimme a break, they have a single basic template, and minimal authoring tools. With these constraints, there are literally tens of thousands of Wordpress, Ghost and vanilla HTML templates by various developers/designers with 1/1000 the resources of Medium that look just as good across devices.

by oddevan 10y ago

rco8786 10y ago

hard != innovative, was OP's point.

fuzzfactor 10y ago
OTOH, solving well-established hard problems sometime requires more true innovation than developing new ideas. I prefer to do both.

mgiannopoulos 10y ago

Well they did that by basically limiting what the user can do. The editing options were extremely limited. There was also no customisation until recently. They built a basic-function responsive blog platform. How is that hard?

giovannibajo1 10y ago
It's very hard to tell people to use your software that has 1/100th of features of the incumbents but it's done better. Apple did it with iPhone for instance, but normally startups die trying.
- coldtea 10y ago
  That's because the iPhone didn't have 1/100 the features of competitors -- it had 80/100 of the features, but focused on the 80% that mattered (no "fm radio" or "mobile flash" for example).
- mgiannopoulos 10y ago
  Imho that was mostly achieved by marketing , not technical innovation (which they claim)
  - Huhty 10y ago
    Also helps a lot with the amount of connections Ev Williams and co have. I would guess that having all the right connections was a huge part of Medium's success, especially really early on. With enough connections you can grow (almost) any half-decent service.

coldtea 10y ago

>That's... not an easy thing to do. Offering something easy to post that's looking good across devices? Gimme a break, they have a single basic template, and minimal authoring tools. With these constraints, there are literally tens of thousands of Wordpress, Ghost and vanilla HTML templates by various developers/designers with 1/1000 the resources of Medium that look just as good across devices.