Medium raises $25 million • Hacker News Board

Re: Medium raises $25 million

#21

Post by lowglow » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 7:53 PM UTC

stephenson wrote: post #9

state wrote: post #3

I guess this is the direct counter-argument to my comment in the thread about Svtle. Is it true that people actually don't care about keeping ownership over their content? I find it so strange that these services which are pitched directly at people who consider themselves to be brilliant also become the archive for your stuff. It just seems like a conflict of interest when, yes, what exactly is their game plan?

Most people care about getting readers, get there message out. This is mediums power. Running your own blog and getting readers tend to be harder.

It's all about distribution. I agree.

Re: Medium raises $25 million

#22

Post by traskjd » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 7:56 PM UTC

seeingfurther wrote: post #17

Why would a billionaire, proven operator and executor raise a round?

Could be to get people who he respects around the table looking at it? Nobody is an island and I've see plenty of folks who raise money more to get talent at the higher end (e.g. Atlasssian raised $60m, to get the right people to help it continue growing and assist in the speculated IPO to come).

Re: Medium raises $25 million

#23

Post by rtpg » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 7:59 PM UTC

normloman wrote: post #15

"Ideally, Williams envisions Medium much like a magazine creative director, inviting the types of items that may show up in a magazine, from features to top-ten lists to cartoons to even video." Good. The internet needs more top 10 lists.

Top 10 lists might be the lowest form of journalism but accepting articles as top 10 lists allows us to avoid the "fake article that actually is a top 10 list" situation. A nice price to pay.

Re: Medium raises $25 million

#24

Post by kevinchen » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 8:00 PM UTC

speakme wrote: post #2

The personnel are impressive, and it's a great service, but what is their game plan?

Right now, Medium is little more than a nicer looking Blogger. But they are vying for the future of online publishing.

Re: Medium raises $25 million

#25

Post by rabble » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 8:03 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #19

The cool thing is Ev is rich enough now to pay back the full $25M personally if he decides to pull another Odeo/Twitter. ...though I imagine most investors will keep their money in play this time :-)

We didn't have a choice last time.

Re: Medium raises $25 million

#26

Post by joeyyang » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 8:04 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #12

I think mediums UI is nice, but as far as i can tell, you cant include code snippets so its almost useless for blogging about programming - until the change that, I am going to continue to use jekyll.

They do support code blocks (cmd-6), but unfortunately, they're not styled in any other way (syntax highlighting, etc.) which makes code blocks somewhat unpleasant to read.

Re: Medium raises $25 million

#27

Post by untog » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 8:09 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #12

I think mediums UI is nice, but as far as i can tell, you cant include code snippets so its almost useless for blogging about programming - until the change that, I am going to continue to use jekyll.

I don't think programmers (writing about code) are Medium's main target market.

Re: Medium raises $25 million

#28

Post by untog » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 8:11 PM UTC

lowglow wrote: post #20

minimaxir wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News comments don't require the blood, sweat, and tears involved in writing a 1,000-word well-edited essay. Additionally, Hacker News comments aren't used by the owning website for potential profit. (Y Combinator as a brand is likely hurt by HN comments anyways)

> Hacker News comments don't require the blood, sweat, and tears involved in writing a 1,000-word well-edited essay. Some people do take the time to write well thought out replies. > Hacker News comments aren't used by the owning website for potential profit. I'm going to disagree. HN profits GREATLY from your participation. > Y Combinator as a brand is likely hurt by HN comments anyways Not likely. Comments from an…

"The HN crowd" has become an online meme for man-child Silicon Valley programmers. So I'd say there is at least a danger of that overflowing to perceptions of YC - just not for anyone YC probably cares about.

Re: Medium raises $25 million

#29

Post by choarham » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 8:12 PM UTC

So, you can type text into a box and people can comment on it. And it has a nice font.

My startup idea is that we sell chairs, but the chairs are nicer than some other chairs and they say 'chair' on them. Can I get $25 million too?

Re: Medium raises $25 million

#30

Post by untog » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 8:14 PM UTC

choarham wrote: post #29

So, you can type text into a box and people can comment on it. And it has a nice font. My startup idea is that we sell chairs, but the chairs are nicer than some other chairs and they say 'chair' on them. Can I get $25 million too?

So, you can type text into a box and people can comment on it.

Like Facebook, and Twitter, and all those other sites that are clearly and obviously different from each other and come on you're trolling aren't you please tell me you're trolling