Medium for iOS - Everyone’s stories and ideas. Anywhere, anytime

I might be the odd one out here, but I just don't "get" Medium. Not only is the design very bland and unexciting (oh, look, everyone gets the same layout!), there's no custom domains or branding and all content that users write belongs to the Medium platform once it's published (i.e you no longer own the rights). It doesn't make any sense - what happened to the self-publishing blogging world, where there were unique designs and layouts that caused the reader to be delighted/inspired? I hope that this trend isn't here to stay. I'm tired of seeing different words on the same page layout. Has the internet given up on creating unique experiences? Will we see "big" self-published types appear out of Medium? Edit: I was wrong about not owning content - thanks to the medium folks for clearing this up

The internet has conflated being a writer (or any kind of creator) and being a distributor. There are good reasons that has happened, but historically it's actually quite an anomaly. Part of our core thesis at Medium is that the status quo isn't quite the right balance.

@evansolomon @dustin hey guys, thanks for participating here....curious to hear more about how Medium is "building a network rather than forcing writers to also be their own distributors." I love the design and usability of Medium, but I've struggled with distribution. I feel like Medium still asks a lot of me in terms of driving attention to a story.

@rrhoover we have ideas for stats to help people understand engagement beyond pageviews, and in a context that makes sense for them. Our currently stats are *very* old and really don't reflect the way we think about engagement and success internally. We just haven't prioritized getting the new stats finished and launched yet. Lots of other things going on...you know the story.

@evansolomon are you guys using anything special to center the images on the more engaging part of the picture when it comes to full screen on the iphone?

Medium just launched version 1.2 most notably adding iPad support.

We've all been waiting for this. I've been fortunate enough to play w/ an early version. I love the stumbleupon-like navigation.

@anildash has a fantastic essay on Medium titled, "What Medium Is." http://dashes.com/anil/2013/08/w... As quoted in the piece @ev admits (via tweet, naturally), "I like confusing people." https://twitter.com/ev/statuses/... Medium has so many similarities to Twitter in that people didn't get it in the beginning. I could go on and on of why I love Medium but I'd prefer to hear from others first.

Owen, nothing happened to self publishing, we just think it's not the right tool for everyone and that there's a lot of value we can add by (1) making everyone's content look good and simple and (2) building a network rather than forcing writers to also be their own distributors. We agree we need more variety in the way content looks. We're working on it now, while still keeping everything beautiful. It's not going to be right for everyone -- if you want fully customized design that's an option you have in a lot of places, part of our bet is that a lot of people don't actually want to deal with that. Btw we don't own any content you post on Medium, you do. That's not special, by the way. There would be few legal decisions more risky than companies claiming ownership over ugc.

@evansoloman - I was just discussing this with @thekenyeung on Twitter and I think you're right. One of the biggest problems with getting down to writing on the internet is the massive amount of time/effort/knowledge that has to be sunk into building something for yourself. Ken pointed out that Medium could be considered like the "op/ed" section in a newspaper, which is quite a good way to put it. https://twitter.com/thekenyeung/... Good to hear that there's variety coming - but I do agree with your thoughts that it should be more about getting down to writing and worrying about that later. You're right - the majority of people out there don't want the hassle of setting something up or having to configure it. Perhaps I should take a second look at Medium - I might be a hypocrite as I've been so distracted on trying to build my own thing that I've not actually done what matters; writing.