Making Medium More Powerful for Publishers
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At Medium, we’re building out a new corner of the Internet specifically designed for people and publishers who want to experience a deeper level of discourse and engagement. Much of the content we love comes from great publications, all of which have different needs. Today we are announcing a new bundle of features: Medium for Publishers, designed to give more tools and horsepower to publishers and bloggers across the web. We want to make it even easier for publications to do what they do best.
Make Medium your home: New custom tools for publishers
Medium is already home to the best writing on the internet. For publishers, we want it to feel even more like home. That means giving publications a way to express their own identities on the platform. This week we are rolling out new branding tools that will allow publications to customize color, layout, and navigation.
You can find these new branding tools in your publication edit page.
Right now on the web, publishers are forced to spend time and money maintaining their aging content management systems. Expensive redesigns inevitably fail to keep up with the rapid pace of technological innovation. On Medium, publishers have full control over their content and spend exactly zero time, money, or effort on tech and hosting, instead focusing their resources on producing great content and reaching new audiences.
We’re also making it easier to migrate existing blogs and websites to Medium. We know many publishers are drawn to the Medium experience but could not move over because they still have years of content hosted elsewhere. We’ve built an easy solution that allows you to move your archives to your custom domain on Medium without having to start from scratch. And, of course, we preserve timestamps and links.
Migration is now live — find all the details here.
We’re also thrilled to announce that some of the best publishers on the web will be migrating their existing content over to Medium, along with several brand-new publications from a slew of notable providers: The Awl, Pacific Standard, Electric Literature, Franklin Leonard’s The Black List, Femsplain, FilmSchoolRejects, The Bold Italic, Monday Note, NewCo Shift, The Banana Boat (by The Infatuation), MEL, Above Average, and The Kicker.
The following publications are also on their way to Medium: Time Inc.’s Money and Fortune Medium-native offshoots, The Hairpin, Women and Hollywood, Go Into the Story (by Scott Myers), War Is Boring, and The Evergreen Review.
Revenue beta: Two new ways to earn money on Medium
Since Medium started, we’ve focused on supporting independent publishing on the web. Today we’re launching two new ways that publishers can opt in to earn revenue on Medium.
The first of these is Promoted Stories. Select publishers and bloggers who consistently produce meaningful, original content and maintain a loyal following of engaged readers will have the ability to host stories from brand partners on posts in their publication. Our initial brand partners include Bose, SoFi, Nest, Intel, and Volpi Foods. We see this as a first step in bringing brands and publishers together on Medium to create meaningful partnerships. Over time, we plan to expand this program and roll out additional opportunities for collaboration.
As a reader, you will see promoted brand stories at the end of a Medium post:
The second component of our revenue beta is Membership. We are launching with a limited number of publications on Medium who will offer members-only content and other perks to readers, in exchange for a monthly membership fee paid directly to the publication. We’re welcoming such publications as Serious Eats, True Magazine and Great Jones Street who will all be offering member-only content on Medium.
These efforts are the first step in helping publishers make money from their content and adopt strategies that suit their publication. We’ve pulled together more information on our revenue beta program for brands and professional publishers interested in participating.
But wait, there’s more!
We want Medium to be your write-once, publish-anywhere destination. That’s why we’ll soon launch compatibility support for Facebook Instant Articles and Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). We’ve also brought collections to the web, showcasing the breadth and best of Medium.
As always, the best work on Medium happens when writers and publishers use our tools in new and creative ways. Please give them a try, and let us know what you think at yourfriends@medium.com.
