How Does The Medium Algorithm Work
How does the Medium algorithm work? I’m betting a lot of you would like to know. Here’s what I know.
I just thought the stuffed animals were cute, that’s all. I’m no programmer, nor a Medium insider, but in my 3 months of writing here I’ve begun to notice some trends in how the algorithm decides what it determines to be your interests, and how you get paid.
1. Algo (that’s my name for the algorithm) tracks the stories you read on Medium and selects it’s recommendations accordingly. Read stories about Medium and you’ll end up with more stories about Medium, read stories about dogs and you’ll end up dogged with stories about dogs.
2. Algo also knows who you follow and promotes their stories to you. Perhaps you’ve noticed the tag, “From your network” in your feed? Your network consists of writers you follow. The more writers you follow the more you’ll be served stories written by people in your network.
3.Algo gives you what you write. Write poetry and you’ll be served poetry. Write porn and Algo will serve you more porn. Look for the tag, “Based on your reading history” in your feed.
4. Algo assumes you want to read the same content that is read by those writers you follow. If someone you follow comments or clicks on an…