Friday 22nd July: What does the next Medium need to succeed?

July 22, 2022

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Medium was everywhere for a while. It was going to be the future of the creator economy and offer journalists the opportunity to distribute and monetise their work outside traditional channels. And while it sort of worked for a bit, the platform isn't at the top of the priority list for most creators.

On his Substack (another platform in danger of going the way of Ozymandias), Simon Owens argues that Ev Williams didn't fully realize how the Creator Economy would evolve: "To succeed, Medium needed to attract the web’s best writers, including those who already achieved some success at mainstream media companies but wanted to transition into more independent careers. But the company kept pissing off the writing community, creating bad will within the very cohort it was trying to attract."

Owens goes into depth as to the missteps of the company, particularly where it comes to payment terms for writers on the platform. Our interview next week is with Scott Lamb, VP Content at Medium who talks about Ev’s departure, Medium-creator turned Medium-CEO Tony Stubblebine and his own hopes for the platform’s future.

Mr. Magazine has done the research and found that there's been a real drought in the number of new magazine titles launched over the past quarter. Part of that must surely come from development being paused in the light of economic uncertainty - but will that number bounce back? He's hopeful!

I like Marketing Brew and Reddit (I recently celebrated my fourth cake day on the platform) but it's true that its approach to monetisation is spotty. As the front page of the internet seeks to attract more brands (including publishers) to launch on it, this inconsistency is bound to raise a few eyebrows from publishers burnt by this sort of thing before.

Journalists - even the straight white males like me playing life on easy mode - are frequent victims of abuse on Twitter. I can't even imagine what it's like for other people. So, it's good to hear of this tool which allows its users to mute and block abusers at scale and to create reports with harmful comments.

This week's podcast:

This week we hear from Sajeeda Merali, CEO of the Professional Publishers Association (PPA). We talked about what her publishing background brings to the organisation, what’s top-of-mind for the publishers the association represents as the effects of the pandemic rumble on, and what defines a magazine publisher today.

Tickets to the inaugural Publisher Podcast Summit are on sale! Take advantage of an exclusive pre-agenda discount code just for our newsletter subscribers: enterMVNL20at checkout for 20% off all ticket types. DO IT.