Medium proves innovation still works

Social networking is still in its infancy.

Sure, Friendster and MySpace and AOL chat rooms and Ning and Pownce came before Facebook and Twitter; but the reality is the way we interact online is still relatively basic.

We post pictures. We send some text. Maybe comment and favorite and thumbs up.

But the kinds of social interactions we have aren’t that different than IRL for the most part (I’m ignoring Tinder — my wife says thank you :-)).

Except, with Medium. With the emergence of Highlighting and Responding there is now a nuanced interaction occurring between replying, favoriting, sharing and reading.

Highlighting is a pointed gesture to let the author and others feel and see what you enjoy.

Responding takes it one step further — it begins a conversation. Which can splinter or end or evolve. But because it stands alone, it is more involved and deep than a typical reply on Facebook or Twitter or even Quora.

These nuanced changes have emerged in recent months, years into the Medium journey.

It gives me hope there will be many more innovations to come in the way we interact through these supercomputers in our pockets.

What about the touch notifications on our wrists and in our pockets?

Can’t wait to see what comes next.