Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog

#21

Post by mapleoin » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 7:42 AM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #20

stephenhacking wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medium has a prettier editor? I could get featured on the first page of medium if my content doesn't suck?

Game Theory. If everyone joins Medium to "get on the front page," then the probability of getting on the front page becomes that much lower. Also, getting on the front page of Medium is mostly irrelevant since you have mostly nil personal branding anyways. If you're going to hit #1 on Hacker News, do it on a website you own with your own content.

then the odds of getting on the front page become that much higher.

you mean lower

Re: Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog

#22

Post by minimaxir » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 7:45 AM UTC

grinich wrote: post #14

marcuspovey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you no longer own or control the content?

What use is owning it if nobody reads it?

You'd be surprised at how much traffic you can get if your blog is properly indexed on Google.

Re: Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog

#23

Post by stephenhacking » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 7:55 AM UTC

mapleoin wrote: post #21

minimaxir wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game Theory. If everyone joins Medium to "get on the front page," then the probability of getting on the front page becomes that much lower. Also, getting on the front page of Medium is mostly irrelevant since you have mostly nil personal branding anyways. If you're going to hit #1 on Hacker News, do it on a website you own with your own content.

then the odds of getting on the front page become that much higher. you mean lower

Yes sir. My bad.

Re: Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog

#24

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 8:12 AM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #20

stephenhacking wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medium has a prettier editor? I could get featured on the first page of medium if my content doesn't suck?

Game Theory. If everyone joins Medium to "get on the front page," then the probability of getting on the front page becomes that much lower. Also, getting on the front page of Medium is mostly irrelevant since you have mostly nil personal branding anyways. If you're going to hit #1 on Hacker News, do it on a website you own with your own content.

[deleted]

Re: Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog

#25

Post by eYsYs » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 8:12 AM UTC

Quora anyone? As a writer, I feel its neat, accessible and of course reliable. People are more likely to follow your profile on Quora than signup with their emails on your personal blog. And don't forget the easy-to-earn upvotes and shares. Down side: No analytics :(

As a reader, Quora gives me more insight about the author through answers on diverse topics.

Disclaimer: Quora fan here! Answer may be biased.

Re: Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog

#26

Post by minimaxir » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 8:14 AM UTC

eYsYs wrote: post #25

Quora anyone? As a writer, I feel its neat, accessible and of course reliable. People are more likely to follow your profile on Quora than signup with their emails on your personal blog. And don't forget the easy-to-earn upvotes and shares. Down side: No analytics :( As a reader, Quora gives me more insight about the author through answers on diverse topics. Disclaimer: Quora fan here! Answer may be biased.

Quora's content ownership and presence of personal branding is worse than Medium, which is quite an accomplishment.

Re: Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog

#27

Post by eYsYs » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 8:25 AM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #26

eYsYs wrote: post #25

Quora anyone? As a writer, I feel its neat, accessible and of course reliable. People are more likely to follow your profile on Quora than signup with their emails on your personal blog. And don't forget the easy-to-earn upvotes and shares. Down side: No analytics :( As a reader, Quora gives me more insight about the author through answers on diverse topics. Disclaimer: Quora fan here! Answer may be biased.

Quora's content ownership and presence of personal branding is worse than Medium, which is quite an accomplishment.

Well, Medium is good. But I like the way I find content on Quora than on Medium. Its more like I stumble upon a post through someone's good answers and comments. Feels more like a discovery. Medium gives me a much narrow view of the author. Something only what the author wants me to see and nothing more.

Re: Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog

#28

Post by omd » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 8:31 AM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #26

eYsYs wrote: post #25

Quora anyone? As a writer, I feel its neat, accessible and of course reliable. People are more likely to follow your profile on Quora than signup with their emails on your personal blog. And don't forget the easy-to-earn upvotes and shares. Down side: No analytics :( As a reader, Quora gives me more insight about the author through answers on diverse topics. Disclaimer: Quora fan here! Answer may be biased.

Quora's content ownership and presence of personal branding is worse than Medium, which is quite an accomplishment.

Only because Medium hasn't accumulate‎d enough free content yet to disclose how they are planning on appropriating and monetizing it.

Don't forget Medium is brought to us from the makers of Twitter, with such classics as "Here's an API; get the fuck off of my API."

Re: Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog

#29

Post by dingaling » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 10:14 AM UTC

I understand the point being made ( running a personal server can be frustrating / time-consuming /annoying ) but the principle of the Web is peer to peer hyperlinking.

Consolidating onto 'easy' vended services may work short-term, but will accelerate the transformation of the Web into 'channels' owned by media conglomerates. Opera Unite was a valiant effort to fight the transformation for 'normal folk' to use but sadly withered.

No-one much visits my blog so I don't have a problem with load, but several co-geeks have moved theirs into AWS to handle peaks. I still feel that's sort-of cheating but at least they retain control and technical nous.

Re: Why I’d rather write in Medium than my personal blog

#30

Post by designofhomes » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 7:18 PM UTC

HeyImAlex wrote: post #4

Eh, use a static site generator in tandem with something like s3+cloudfront and you can have a lightning fast and practically infinitely scalable personal site for pennies a month. My site's not particularly complex, but it comes out ahead speed wise on pingdom when compared to medium. http://i.imgur.com/O2xVK7t.jpg

What surprised me most about the speed stats in your image is the file size of the pages. The medium.com page is half a megabyte! And yet it's a plain text page. What's causing the bloat? Are fonts being downloading? Even if they are, it's still feels excessive.