For those who find the character limitation on Twitter maddening, but also hate the self-absorption of blogging, there is a newcomer that may pique your interest: Medium.
Created by Twitter and Blogger creators Evan Williams and Biz Stone, Medium seeks to occupy the market for self-publication that lies somewhere in between these two options.
http://adage.com/article/the-media-guy/meet-medium-thing-twitter-guys/236705/
While there is obviously much expectation to see how Medium differentiates itself and what users will think, some of the initial responses have been lukewarm.
According to Josh Benton at neimanlab.org, Medium incorporates features from many of the social sharing services: "Like Tumblr, it relies on artfully constructed templates for its structural power; like Pinterest, it’s designed to be image-heavy."
Some other criticisms include the site's resistance to reverse-chron postings (a standard format where the most recent postings are at the top of the list) and the organization of the site, which has user add their posts to a category instead of categorizing their posts. This disintermediation of the author from the post is meant to create a simpler community that organizes around topics.
It remains to be seen whether Medium can fill a void that actually exists. Frankly, coming from the inventors or Twitter and Blogger, it seems a little like "another site" doing essentially the same thing. Only time will tell, but if there are any creators who have the track record to make this a success, it is Evan Williams and Biz Stone.
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