Twitter founder creates new social platform - Medium

Amidst all of this week's buzz surrounding Twitter's IPO is a story in the New York Times about Medium, a new social media platform created by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams.  Mr. Williams, who was also involved in Blogger's creation, states that Medium is a blogging platform.  According to the New York Times, Medium uses a mathematical algorithm that will cut down on the "noise" associated with other social media and allow people to read what truly interests them.

I signed up for Medium to see what it is about.  I had to log in through my Twitter account, and apparently this is the only way to sign up.  Medium provided me a list of posts to read with titles like "Homage to Absinthe: Barcelona Revisited" and "The abundance of slowness."  Each post has a time next to the length telling you how long it should take to read.  They ranged from 1-10 minutes, but most were in the 3-5 minute range.  

At this point, I'm not sure what to do with Medium.  I love Twitter and Instagram, and I use Facebook and Tumblr as well.  From a digital marketing standpoint, I'm not sure how companies can use a long-form social medium to promote their products.  This is why Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are so good for marketing.  People can interact with brands without investing much time.  Time will tell whether companies will be able to use a platform like Medium for marketing.