Are we in a bubble or what.
Medium raises $25 million
51–60 of 92 posts
Re: Medium raises $25 million
#52I 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.
Isn't https://coderwall.com/ the medium's counterpart for programmers? I don't use either, just throwing it out there.
Re: Medium raises $25 million
#53I 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: https://medium.com/help-center/128f049a7ad (just search the page for "Code block")
It's pretty limited (e.g., no syntax highlighting) and if you're not careful it will do things like change double quotes (U+0022) to curly quotes (e.g., U+201C and U+201D).
Re: Medium raises $25 million
#54I 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?
> Is it true that people actually don't care about keeping ownership over their content? You comment here. Isn't that basically the same thing? What are comments if not for mini-blog posts sometimes.
Good point! My comments are somewhat ephemeral to me. I'm not a very prolific commenter, and I don't feel all that attached to the content. To concede the point in practice, I'll just go for it with a long reply. I do wish comments were somehow a part of my own complete archive though. That seems like it would obviously be better.
Although I think the quality of discussion on HN is interesting, it's not that the HN brand is explicitly about the quality of the comments. The writing interface is pretty dissimilar from what Medium offers. To me there there appears to be an obvious conflict: if you're all about attracting brilliant users wouldn't those users also want to retain complete ownership over their content? Isn't that the smart long-term thing to do in a world of quickly changing services?
What's especially fascinating to me is the role that design plays in these services. Medium has clearly spent an exceptional amount of money to create a particular user experience. Without commenting on its quality, it seems that the aesthetic they have chosen has almost become a red flag. Spent all our money on design? Don't worry, we're going to sell you out anyway!
That should come with the disclaimer that I'm trained as an architect. Design is important, but most important is the tool. In so many cases design is just a way to send messages that distract from the actual workings of the tool.
Re: Medium raises $25 million
#55Why would a billionaire, proven operator and executor raise a round?
To reduce his risk.
Now he has a bunch of other smart people who have some skin in the game. They have motivation to help him succeed - which should encourage them to help him grow and eventually to find an exit of some sort.
He might be a multi-billionaire but that doesn't mean he's going to throw his money around on 6-packs of rolexes like all the other billionaires.
Re: Medium raises $25 million
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
i understand that, but ostracizing a group of people that are probably some of their core users right now (tech community) seems stupid - adding the feature would be very easy
You are a programmer that just said "adding the feature would be very easy."
Maybe it's "should be easy" rather than "would be easy", but there's probably something wrong if it's not, yeah? Pretty much every other blogging engine does this and without a ton of effort. Code highlighting libraries exist in pretty much every web language (is there a serious one that doesn't have a Pygments equivalent?). It's just markup.
Re: Medium raises $25 million
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is it true that people actually don't care about keeping ownership over their content? You comment here. Isn't that basically the same thing? What are comments if not for mini-blog posts sometimes.
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)
HN also has a posting limit that's limiting for longer posts as well. Not to mention some crippling deficiencies in markup and other capabilities.
Re: Medium raises $25 million
#58I 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?
> Is it true that people actually don't care about keeping ownership over their content? You comment here. Isn't that basically the same thing? What are comments if not for mini-blog posts sometimes.
The reward for commenting on HN is generally engagement and discussion.
I've been casting about myself for a suitable platform. I've actually mostly settled on reddit as it's got a community, some of whom are interested in the topics I am, good search tools, and a serviceable posting infrastructure. Markdown, Imgur for image links, semi-embeddable images with the Reddit Enhancement Suite, and a Wiki for more structured content.
I've also got a more traditional blogging platform (Dreamwidth).
Since I prefer to operate pseudonymously, self-hosting is not a good fit, though I could do that if I chose. And finding a good mix of platform and tools is tough.
As for layout, I've got enough CSS chops that I can shove the more annoying bits of a site out of the way, at least to my preferences.
Re: Medium raises $25 million
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a distribution / curation thing, like writing an Op-Ed for a magazine instead of publishing it on your blog. Either way you get the word out, but by ceding control to the magazine you gain access to a wider audience, unless you are in the 1% of bloggers who are a destination themselves (like daringfireball.com). Even Krugman "blogs" via the NYT instead of on his own domain. Both ways are valuable, of course. Jus…
For a distribution/curation thing, I just prefer everyone write their own articles/content on their own website, and then have something like Hacker News, Retweets, Kottke, FB, Flipboard, etc...to float the good things to the top. EDIT: the only time I've ever gone to Medium to read anything was when something surfaced on Hacker News. I don't really see it as anything more than another blogging engine.
There's also RSS/Atom, which I'm belatedly discovering, and appreciating greatly.
Re: Medium raises $25 million
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think programmers (writing about code) are Medium's main target market.
i understand that, but ostracizing a group of people that are probably some of their core users right now (tech community) seems stupid - adding the feature would be very easy
"Ostracizing" is a pretty strong word here.