Has Medium turned around for the better?

Let’s find out in this short ramble.

Over 3 years ago, I wrote an article why you shouldn’t publish on Medium. I’ll leave that there so you can read what I said and how I think things “may” have changed at Medium. I say may because it hasn’t all happened.

R.I.P. Medium — Don’t Plant Your Content Flag On Borrowed Land

If you're not worried about your content being axed, or cropped, then Medium could be your platform. I still recommend Medium over WordPress for people who have no idea about running a “content management system”.

Recently, Ev Williams ushered some changes. I was reading their recent update and nearly all my questions were being answered. Here are some of the nice changes:

1. Custom Domain Mapping — I suggested this, because we have to have control over content, and locking people in — is not the best way to grow. Ev and the team went way beyond and introduced this not just for Publications (group of publishers), but also for Profiles (individual publishers). Good move, although waiting to see when they launch this (just checked and found out it isn’t available… yet).
2. Commenting — nearly everyone was complaining about this. It was just so clunky to make a comment. That’s changed. Hope to see some more improvements here, because this is at the core of ‘relational’ publishing.
3. Curation — I noticed that only if a curator sees you on their platform, you get noticed. Well, at least they’re increasing the number of curators.
4. Customization — you can’t fit everyone into the same box. They’ve realized this. And it’s becoming a bit like Tumblr in that you can customize your blogs appearance. Still in beta I believe.
5. Mobile App & Paywall — this has improved significantly, it has no become frictionless reading. However, the Paywall, while it has improved. You cannot so easily join the Partner Program, unless you have a Stripe account. I have one, but still cannot be accepted — because only some countries are allowed, not all — including ones like India which are already accepted by Stripe.

If you’d like to read more, head over to the thoughts behind these changes, straight from the horse's mouth:

Toward a more relational Medium

And read the Medium Blog to see more about the latest updates.