Great analysis. Enjoyed this.

But as a WordPress enthusiast and evangelist…ouch. However, you did really hit the nail on the head about what makes Medium stand out from other platforms, such as WordPress.

Perhaps a couple advantages that Medium has is its singular focus on making it as simple to write a good looking story and that Medium has been developed during the smartphone era.

WordPress is a great for blogging. But it is also great for all sorts of things. It can be owned and manipulated to become nearly anything you can imagine up. But Medium? Nope. It has one focus. Writing stories and sharing them — and looking good while doing so. Want to do something else with it? Eh…you can try, and you may succeed, but it’s probably best to stick to writing.

The fact that Medium is so new is actually an advantage. It hasn’t had to evolve a whole platform. It started afresh providing features that are the weaknesses of other platforms.

It could not be any easier to write on Medium, (unless it just dictated my thoughts, which would be scary). They take away any excuses for not writing. It’s easy to make any story look good. It’s easy to save drafts. Its especially easy to write on a mobile device (as I am doing right now on my iPhone 5s). And I don’t have to worry about keeping up my own personal space. The focus remains on making it as easy as possible to write and share my stories, and that is awesome. No other platform really has been able to do this as well as Medium.

My favorite point you made was with the simple details they pay attention to. “Share a story” is much more inviting than “add — post.” Recommending something takes a bit more ownership and thought.

At the end of the day Medium doesn’t replace personal blogs or blogging communities. It doesn’t replace news sites. But it’s a place where we all enter the platform the same way. The ground is level. Twitter has made nearly everyone accessible, and Medium does a similar thing for writers and storytellers.

Medium is helping us understand how to have conversations with anyone and everyone, no matter our status, background, location, or beliefs.

They are encouraging us to engage with one another to respond to one another, and not just make thoughtless comments. I like that. It encourages us to be better listeners and more thoughtful and empathetic people.