Medium (website)

Medium
	File:Medium logo.svg
Company type	Private
Industry	Digital publishing, Blogging
Founded	August 2012; 14 years ago
Founder	Evan Williams
Headquarters	United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Tony Stubblebine (CEO), Evan Williams (Chairman)
Products	Digital publishing platform, blogging service, subscription plans
Owner	A Medium Corporation
Number of employees	30 (2013)
Website	medium.com

Medium is a US-based digital publishing platform for articles and blogs, established by Evan Williams and introduced in August 2012. It is owned by A Medium Corporation and functions worldwide as a hybrid venue accommodating both amateur contributors and professional authors, including exclusive publishers. Medium is widely regarded as a leading blog hosting service in the online publishing sector.

Williams, known for co-founding Blogger and Twitter, developed Medium to support more extensive content beyond Twitter's initial character restrictions.

In March 2021, Medium revised its business approach by reducing its editorial publications and placing greater emphasis on empowering independent writers, signaling a strategic shift toward fostering individual content creators.

2012–2016

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Evan Williams launched Medium in 2012 to facilitate longer posts surpassing Twitter’s 140-character limit. From the outset, Williams prioritized enhancing the quality of content over increasing volume.

By April 2013, Medium had grown to 30 full-time employees and became Williams’ main focus. Although optimistic early on, the platform remained relatively modest by August, adopting a strategy aimed at simplicity for thoughtful writers.

Medium concentrated on maximizing visitor reading time—reaching 1.5 million hours in March 2015—rather than focusing solely on audience size. Williams criticized conventional metrics like unique visitors as unpredictable and less significant. By May 2017, Medium reported attracting 60 million unique monthly readers.

The company supported an editorial team and managed several contracted publications such as Matter, which was nominated for a 2015 National Magazine Award. Nevertheless, in May 2015, Medium reduced its editorial budget and laid off numerous publication staff, leading some contributors to depart.

In 2017, Medium introduced a subscription paywall and began remunerating authors based on engagement indicators like "claps" and reading duration. Additional revenue streams included native advertising and sponsored content series.

While attracting new publishers, Medium encountered difficulties with its advertising ventures. In January 2017, it laid off 50 employees and closed offices in New York and Washington, D.C. Williams explained that the company was moving away from incremental ad-driven revenue models toward one that rewards writers according to the value they produce. By this time, Medium had secured $134 million in venture capital funding from investors including Williams himself.

In 2016, Medium acquired Embedly, a platform specializing in rich media embedding used by numerous websites including Medium itself. That year, the platform hosted approximately 7.5 million posts and served an audience of 60 million readers.

2017–present

March 2017 saw the launch of Medium’s $5 monthly membership plan providing access to exclusive content, with authors compensated a fixed fee per article. Subsequently, prominent publications such as The Ringer and Condé Nast's Backchannel exited the platform, citing concerns over diminished support for publication profitability. In October 2017, founder Ev Williams confirmed that Medium would avoid traditional banner ads in favor of revenue models based on micropayments, tips, and patronage.

In January 2021, Medium broadened its offerings by acquiring Glose, a social ebook company. Later that year, it also purchased Projector—a browser-based graphic design tool whose CEO Trevor O'Brien became Medium’s chief product officer—and Knowable, an audio learning platform, reflecting strategic expansion into multimedia services.

February 2021 marked unionization efforts at Medium when employees organized with CODE-CWA; about 70% of eligible staff across editorial and product departments signed union cards. Despite appeals for voluntary recognition, the union missed approval by one vote in March. During this period, Medium hired a union avoidance firm while CEO Williams personally discouraged union membership through small group meetings.

On July 12, 2022, Ev Williams resigned as CEO to assume the role of chairman of the board. Tony Stubblebine—former CEO of Coach.me with broad expertise in technology and digital media—was appointed CEO on July 20. This leadership change aimed to drive forward Medium’s business objectives and market expansion.

Users

Medium does not release official figures regarding its user base. However, available reports suggest that the platform attracted around 60 million monthly visitors in 2016, a substantial increase from approximately 25 million in 2015, illustrating notable growth and expanding market presence.

Platform

The Medium platform provides a comprehensive WYSIWYG editor equipped with advanced text formatting options, facilitating straightforward content creation. Users have the ability to recommend, share, and upvote posts, employing engagement mechanisms similar to social networks like Twitter and Reddit, which boost content reach and user interaction.

In August 2017, Medium launched the "clap" feature, enabling readers to show appreciation multiple times per article (up to 50 claps). This mechanism directly influences author earnings by linking compensation to content popularity and reader engagement.

Account setup can be completed via integration with Facebook, Google, or through email registration on the mobile application, simplifying the onboarding process.

Memberships

Medium offers subscription plans priced at $5 per month or $50 annually. Subscribers receive access to premium content, audio narrations, and enhanced bookmarking functions—features that contribute significantly to recurring revenue and foster subscriber loyalty.

Partner Program

The Medium Partner Program remunerates writers based on how members engage with their content, allocating a share of subscription revenue proportional to reading time. Starting May 1, 2024, Medium has banned AI-generated content from being monetized or included behind paywalls within this program.

Tag system

Instead of organizing posts by author, Medium categorizes articles by topic using a "claps" system that allows users to upvote favored pieces. This tagging approach improves content discovery and audience targeting.

Publications

Medium hosts collective editorial spaces known as "Publications," which operate like digital magazines with editorial oversight and draft management capabilities. Notable acquisitions and launches include:

Matter (acquired in 2013), a publication focused on science and technology.
Cuepoint, a music publication led by industry veteran Jonathan Shecter, featuring contributions from prominent executives and critics such as Robert Christgau.
Backchannel, a technology-focused publication edited by Steven Levy, which was sold to Condé Nast in 2016.
The recruitment of Human Parts’ founder in 2016 to emphasize personal storytelling.
Hosting The Ringer website starting February 2016 until its transition to Vox Media in 2017.
Acquisition of Bay Area magazine The Bold Italic in 2019.
The launch of seven new niche publications in 2019 targeting varied audiences: GEN (politics and culture), OneZero (technology and science), Marker (business), Elemental (health), Focus (productivity), Zora (women of color), and Level (men of color).
Introduction of Momentum in 2020, concentrating on anti-racism and civil rights issues.

These strategic initiatives highlight Medium’s business approach centered on diversifying content verticals to broaden market penetration and enhance user engagement.

Board members

As of June 2020, Medium’s board comprised influential figures including co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, who played key roles in shaping company strategy. Other distinguished members included Josh Elman from Greylock Partners, Ben Horowitz, and Colin Kaepernick—Medium’s inaugural director of color—underscoring the company’s dedication to diversity and market impact.

Previous implementation of holacracy

Medium originally embraced holacracy as its framework for corporate governance to facilitate a non-hierarchical organizational structure without conventional managerial roles. Nevertheless, by 2016, the company abandoned this approach due to difficulties managing extensive projects, inefficiencies in documentation processes, and adverse perceptions that hindered operational performance. This transition corresponded with Medium’s shifting business strategy and leadership requirements.

Reception

Upon its debut in 2012, The Guardian commended the platform’s collections, particularly highlighting a nostalgic photographic compilation by Williams. TechCrunch suggested that the name "Medium" signified its intermediary role between Twitter and comprehensive blogging platforms. Lawrence Lessig emphasized Medium’s embrace of Creative Commons licensing, demonstrated through a collaboration with The Public Domain Review—an interactive version of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland featuring freely remixable public domain and Creative Commons content alongside contributions from readers.

In 2013, certain authors expressed concerns about ambiguous content guidelines on the platform. A 2019 article from Nieman Lab characterized Medium as having "experienced numerous pivots," evolving into a continuous experiment within digital publishing.

Malaysia

In January 2016, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) issued a takedown request targeting an article by the Sarawak Report, which had been publishing on Medium since July 2015 after its own website was blocked. The report implicated funds from the state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) in transactions linked to Prime Minister Najib Razak’s accounts.

Medium’s legal team sought formal evidence from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission challenging the article’s veracity and refused to remove the content absent a court mandate. Consequently, all Medium content was blocked throughout Malaysia on January 27, 2016. The restriction was lifted on May 18, 2018, following the government’s public release of the 1MDB investigation report and determination that continued blocking was unwarranted.

Egypt

Beginning in June 2017, the Egyptian government blocked Medium as part of a broader suppression affecting over 60 media websites, including Al Jazeera and The Huffington Post’s Arabic edition. Access to Medium was restored in late 2022.

China

In April 2016, Medium was censored in mainland China subsequent to publishing leaked documents related to the Panama Papers.

Albania

The Albanian Audiovisual Media Authority imposed a block on Medium from April 19 to April 21, 2020.

Vietnam

By late 2020, reports indicated that certain Vietnamese internet service providers restricted access to Medium.

Russia

On May 31, 2023, Roskomnadzor blocked Medium along with all associated subdomains within Russia.

Software architecture

Medium’s infrastructure relies predominantly on AWS, utilizing components such as EC2, S3, CloudFront, EBS, and RDS for Aurora, as well as Route 53. The platform was initially created using Node.js, with its text editor based on TinyMCE. By 2017, the image-serving backend had been reimplemented in Go, while primary application servers continued running on Node.js. This design enables efficient scaling of content delivery and supports Medium’s global operations.

External links