Medium acquires social ebook platform Glose

Today, Medium announced the acquisition of Glose, a social digital book platform based in Paris, France. Founded in 2014, Glose reaches more than one million readers in 200 countries. Boasting a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, Glose carries ebooks and audiobooks from all major publishers, including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster.

Medium supports a wide range of publishing, from short blog posts to in-depth investigative journalism, and everything in between. With the integration of Glose, Medium will have more than 1.5 million books available within its vibrant ecosystem. Readers will be able to find more of what they are looking for by an author or on a subject, and writers can have their different content forms all in one place, elevating their voice and perspective.

Built as a reading hub, Glose allows readers to access ebooks and audiobooks on any device: laptop, tablet or smartphone, online and offline. On Glose, readers can create booklists, engage in reading groups, share highlights and annotations of the books they read, follow their daily and weekly reading activity, and set personal reading goals.

“We’re impressed not only by Glose’s reading products and technology, but also by their experience in partnering with book authors and publishers,” said Ev Williams, Medium CEO. “Books are a means of exploring an idea, a way to go deeper. The vast majority of the world’s ideas are stored in books and journals, yet are hardly searchable nor shareable. With Glose, we want to improve that experience within Medium’s large network of engaged readers and writers. We look forward to working with the Glose team on partnering with publishers to help authors reach more readers.”

“Glose’s mission has always been to help people read more, and help them get more out of what they read,” said Nicolas Princen, founder and CEO of Glose. “Joining Medium is a great opportunity to bring our technology to a wider number of readers around the world. We’ve always been fans of Ev’s work and his vision for Medium, and felt close to Medium’s mission to help people share ideas that matter. We are proud to be joining such a world-changing company and working hand in hand with book publishers to make this vision happen.”