Listening to Ev and Joi talk about the open web

I’m watching the video between Joi Ito and Evan Williams talking about me. Technically Medium is no worse than other systems, and lately has become better, because it now has an API, as Ev is mentioning right now in the video as I’m listening to it.

The reason I focus on Medium is because it is becoming the default platform for people writing blog posts. But Medium is actually part of the open web.

Joi is now asking the right question. It would be great if Medium directly supported Instant Articles as-is. Interop is great. Many ways to do things sucks.

He doesn’t need to talk to Facebook to support IA. It’s an open format.

The problem with the way Medium API works is that you can’t flow updates to it. So if I make a change later the update doesn’t show up on Medium.

BTW, I heard a touch of irony in Ev’s voice as he questioned whether Medium was really the 800-pound gorilla in this space. They aren’t, Facebook is. But Medium is still drawing a lot of good stuff away from the open web, and believe it or not that’s okay with me, as long as it can be shared back into rest of the web, exactly as Joi was discussing. Then more power to them in their competition with Facebook.

Links

Anyway the big pieces relevant to this conversation are:

1. Anywhere But Medium.
2. How Instant Articles Supports the Open Web.

See the original post for any updates.