Medium Has Changed Again, What Does It Mean for You?
By: Jennifer Geer
Tags: Creativity, Writing, Blogging, Ｍedium, Writing On Medium

Medium Has Changed Again, What Does It Mean for You?

Does curation still exist and other pressing questions

Photo by Viktor Vasicsek on Unsplash

Medium has done it again. A new announcement regarding a change to the curation and distribution system has just been dropped.

But first things first. Yes, there is still curation, and yes, your story will still be curated into topics. More on that later.

Here is the official Medium article on the updates to the curation and distribution system:

The changes to curation and distribution are all in sync with Medium’s new plan of a “relational Medium.” So, before we delve into curation changes, we should take a quick look at the latest from Ev Williams.

To sum it up, Medium is rolling out a new mobile app. The big difference is the algorithm will not be based on topics but on followings. What does this mean for you? If you have a large following on Medium, your stories will become more accessible to your readers. This is great for the top writers with thousands of followers.

On the other hand, if you have a modest following, it doesn’t appear you’re going to get much visibility. For example, in the old method, I follow the topic of “fitness,” therefore, I see stories about “fitness” in my feed. I might see a writer whose work I read regularly, but I can also discover new writers that write about “fitness.”

But now, what stories I see are driven by whom I follow, not the topics I follow.

I don’t have the updated app, so I can’t review it in action. But from a screenshot from Williams’s article, you can see that you will be presented with a row of authors from your followers. You can click on any one of them and be taken directly to their profile page, where you can read their latest articles.

Again, this is fantastic for the top writers. I’m sure they are thrilled as this means even more exposure for them. But if you’re a new writer without much of a following, I am concerned you will struggle to get your stories in front of readers.

The other casualty of this new method is the writer with multiple niches. I mainly write about health and fitness. But I also write about parenting and the environment. Occasionally I write a poem.

The beauty of Medium is that I’m allowed to express my creativity and write about anything that interests me. Medium’s algorithms made this all work. My fitness followers could see my fitness articles. My poetry followers, if they existed, could see my poetry. But now, how many of them will be turned away if they click my profile and get hit with a barrage of mediocre poems?

If you’re a new writer without much of a following, I am concerned you will struggle to get your stories in front of readers.

My other thoughts are how I consume media. When I read the New York Times or scroll through Google News, I’m not searching out my favorite columnists. I’m reading what headlines catch my eye in the topics I am interested in. Williams is moving away from this in an effort for authors to “develop deeper relationships” with their readers.

Sadly, the side effect of this is that it will be even more difficult to discover new voices on Medium.