Medium is definitely an American on the web publishing platform formulated by Evan Williams and launched in August 2012. It is actually owned by A Medium Company.[2] The System is undoubtedly an example of social journalism, aquiring a hybrid assortment of amateur and Specialist individuals and publications, or exceptional weblogs or publishers on Medium,[3] and is particularly routinely considered to be a website host.

Williams, Beforehand co-founder of Blogger and Twitter,[four] at first made Medium as a way to publish writings and documents extended than Twitter's one hundred forty-character (now 280-character) most.

In March 2021, Medium introduced a improve in its publishing strategy and organization product, lowering its possess publications and expanding support of impartial writers.[five]

History
2012–2016
Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder and former CEO, developed Medium to really encourage customers to generate posts extended compared to the then one hundred forty-character Restrict of Twitter. When it launched in 2012, Williams stated, "You will find been less progress towards increasing the standard of what's made."[six]

By April 2013, Williams described there were 30 entire-time team working on the System,[seven] which includes a vacancy for your "Storyteller" function,[8] and that it had been getting "ninety eight per cent" of his time.[seven] By August, Williams claimed that the site was nevertheless smaller, although he was nevertheless optimistic about this, indicating "We are trying to make it as uncomplicated as feasible for Individuals who have considerate things to say".[9]

Medium continues to be focusing on optimizing time site visitors shell out examining the site (1.five million several hours in March 2015), as opposed to maximizing the size of its audience.[10][11] In 2015, Williams criticized the regular Net website traffic metric of one of a kind guests as "a very unstable and meaningless variety for what we are seeking to do".[eleven] In accordance with the corporation, as of May well 2017, Medium.com experienced sixty million exceptional every month audience.[twelve]

Medium managed an editorial department staffed by Expert editors and writers, had numerous Other individuals signed on as contractors and served being a publisher for many publications. Subject operated from Medium Headquarters in San Francisco and was nominated for the 2015 Nationwide Journal Award.[13] In Could 2015, Medium manufactured deep cuts to its editorial funds forcing layoffs at dozens of publications hosted around the System.[fourteen] Numerous publications left the platform.

In 2017, Medium released paywalled written content available only to subscribers.[15] In 2017, Medium began shelling out authors dependant on exactly how much buyers expressed their appreciation for it via a like button which Each individual person could activate many periods.[sixteen] The method for payment was shortly adapted to also contain the amount of time readers used looking at, Besides the usage of the like button.[17]