What’s Next for Medium?

Some unsolicited Advice

Some unsolicited Advice

Yesterday I read Ev Williams’s post about Medium discontinuing it’s current native-ad supported business, (and laying off staff and shutting down two offices as a result). While it must have been very difficult to let so much talent go, and a blow to the company’s collective morale to have to so publicly admit that something wasn’t working, I see this as a positive move for Medium and even for the publishing industry.

Ad-supported media needs to collectively get its act together, and while some long-established publishers seem to be sitting pretty, they are getting their asses handed back to them and have to lean on their legacy businesses (print/TV ads, search engine traffic) to mask the dry rot deep within the bowels of their programmatically-run, data-compromised, Facebook/Google-arbitrated ad operations.

Medium’s eight-month experiment into a non-intrusive monetization model is, by comparison, short and non-life-threatening. It failed, but it failed quickly, and with its core product intact. When I go to Medium, I still get great content that I subscribed to, and I’m directed to content that is relevant. As a content producer I benefit from distribution and discovery. The value proposition hasn’t changed.

As I’ve shared with the Medium team I’m a fan, even when I’m a critic. I still get more feed love from LinkedIn; more in-depth reporting and breaking news elsewhere. And for the life of me I can’t figure out why anything I share from Medium on Facebook gets no views while things I share from other pubs do. (Is it me? My friends?)

But as an early proponent (and OK profiteer) of blogging culture, I see Medium as the next frontier. With so many of even the biggest bloggers divesting from ads as their sole source of revenue, and frankly kind of sick of having to keep up a blog that fewer and fewer people go to, Medium has become the platform of choice, the inheritor of our hours spent troubleshooting broken HTML/CSS scripts on our blogs.

With 60 million monthly readers the product is definitely going in the right direction. But what’s next for Medium? Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Get out a bit more.

Yes, even Hillary posted on Medium in 2016 because she’s, you know, a woman of the people. But Trump got to the masses in Appalachia, the Rust Belt, and beyond. There’s a sensibility among Medium readers that may not immediately translate in these demos, but Medium could cultivate influencers, publishers, and content that will resonate in these hard-to-reach spots.

This may sound a bit kumbaya, but you can cultivate a common thread of civility and inquiry among many more than just us venture-capital-seeking, stock-option-vesting, DUMBO-dwelling, Phillz-coffee-drinking crowd.

To be fair, I do see standout writing from authors that are not based anywhere near a U.S. coastline, though I’m always amazed when I come across local people in tangential industries who could use Medium but don’t know it exists.

I recently conducted a marketing workshop for a group of senior female executives on promoting their professional platforms. The workshop was billed by the organizer as “Blogging Strategy 101” and I felt all controversial saying in my opening statement that I recommended little to no blogging and use of multiple platforms, for publishing such as LinkedIn, Quora, or Medium. Approximately 80 percent of them had never heard of Medium. None were publishing on it. One of the women, a friend of mine, didn’t realize that she was on Medium when I sent her a link from it.

I know: Raising awareness among this crowd doesn’t solve your revenue problem if you are no longer ad-supported, but actually it can. See next.

2. Monetize publisher services.

Recently a book agent (or so I thought) contacted me to talk about a writing project. Her specialty, she explained, was helping writers tease out book concepts, developing them, and then leveraging her extensive experience in the book publishing industry to secure guaranteed shelf space in bookstores. I would just need to pay her $50k.

She approached me as both a potential client and as a source of more business, since I knew so many great bloggers who undoubtedly needed help getting published in print format.

My immediate thought (other than fuck no) was: While there may be digital influencers who want this service, most are already published in print and can secure their own distribution, online or otherwise — hence their status as digital influencers. Her best option, in my opinion, would be to offer paid development services where needed, and to front the publishing costs, taking a steep revenue share on sales.

The point is: She wasn’t crazy. There is a market for publishing services. But you have to be realistic about how to value what each party brings to the table.

Publishers know what they bring (and don’t bring) to the table: Medium brings distribution to those who haven’t yet built an audience and it simplifies the publishing process. Publishers would be willing to pay for tools that enhance distribution…to a point. Not talking thousands here, I’m talking a few bucks per month for access to the publishing software, and a premium option ($10-$20 a month) for access to a distribution mechanism (after all, we bloggers paid fees for premium blog products for YEARS).

Professionals would gladly pay this as a cost of maintaining a professional platform. Companies/consultancies could purchase whole licenses, with upgrades for building their own publications. You open the door for additional services that publishers can opt into to further enhance their presence.

Note that I’m not suggesting that Medium become Ad Words for content (also known as Native Advertising). Audience generation would still be organic, but access to the distribution tools would be part of a hosting fee.

Admittedly this may not work for the pubs that Medium pulled into its Special Snowflake program, nor will it work with publishers/bloggers with any literary or blogospheric imprimatur.

These folks would graduate to a paid subscription model.

Which leads to my last thought:

3. Consider a tiered, subscription model.

Cable and OTT models have provided some interesting precedents. I may not pay for all Medium content, but I might pay $3 a month for access to BackChannel, or $12 a month for access to all its premium offerings (which would include access to the free stuff, of course).

The onus would be on Medium to keep acquiring the best content, packaging it effectively, and enabling the most relevant content to reach its readers. This, I think, is doable. It has been a great discovery service of independent publishers thus far.

A freemium version is still available, of course, lest Medium suffer from Vessel’s issue of monetizing content no one knew they wanted. Perhaps free trials, or free versions of content are available when a piece is shared (like with The Information) to enable awareness and upgrades.

I’ll be very interested, indeed, to see where Medium takes things in 2017.