You may have noticed a new button at the bottom of the stories on Medium. It looks like this:

There is also one on every user’s Profile Page:

Following a person on Medium does a few things:

When they publish a story:

• It becomes part of your personal reading list on your Medium homepage, as well as in your iOS app.
• You receive an email announcing the story, at a maximum of one per day. For more about when we send emails, see this article.
• You see a notification in your sidebar menu.

When they recommend a story:

• It may become part of the personalized reading list on your Medium homepage, as well as in your iOS app.

It is possible that you are already following people. This number is automatically populated by a combination of your connections on Twitter and Facebook who also have Medium accounts. To have the widest network on Medium, make sure that you’ve connected to Facebook on your settings page.