The vehicle missing from the market right now is a publishing network that does what Livefyre or Discus had the potential to be, a jumping off point for the discussion and expansion of the most thought provoking articles of the day. I guess it would be like Drudge, one page of curated content, content that had already demonstrated a high level of comment interest, connected to a publishing platform that allows passionate readers to expand on the subject at length, to connect with others passionate about the same subject, and over time create a searchable repository of issue resources. What I see today are reams of short snippets of click bait with a shelf life of hours if not minutes. Imagine the level of traffic you could get by shifting a percentage of comment traffic from the Huffpros of the world by allowing engaged readers to not only comment but draft long form works, upload papers, slide decks, photographs videos, etc.

Over the past few years I have found myself gravitating toward news sources that facilitate comment and drifting away from sources that are stand alone or only allow subscribers to comment. I have conversations that last for days beyond publication of the original article. Due to the structure of comment threads those conversations soon end. Interestingly I get a few responses a week to comments I posted months ago and had long forgotten. Medium could easily morph into something like this, and achieve a much much broader reach.

People talk about the potential of the web for connection and community, but very few are trying to do anything beyond generating traffic today. Just as in most other industries, the real value is in the residuals, the referrals and the repeat customers you don’t have to spend a fortune on marketing to generate today’s revenue. Heck I just drafted a viable business model I have no power to implement. Drats! LOL