“That’s why I say Medium is not a publishing tool. It’s a network. A network of ideas that build off each other. And people.” — Ev Williams

At its core Medium is something that could change the way people, institutions and brands share ideas, thoughts and lessons learned, something I talked about recently.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates

Medium can engender a generation of writers, from individuals to institutions, who share their most valuable lessons with a community of interested readers. But more importantly, for Medium to thrive, they’d need to create a renaissance of personal writing that would make Michel De Montaigne proud. And, by expanding the reading and writing graph of the world, the way Facebook did with the social graph and LinkedIn did with the economic graph, they’ll achieve their goal of nurturing words of substance.

But as much as Montaigne taught us about writing, he arguably taught us even more about reading — after all, the two are inextricably intertwined, for a good writer is invariably a good reader. Another insight on the art of living that Bakewell extracts from Montaigne’s writing is to “read a lot.” For Montaigne, books weren’t mere entertainment or education; they were entire experiences, exchanges, bridges to other minds and other epochs.

What Montaigne looked for in a book, just as people later looked for it in him [was] the feeling of meeting a real person across the centuries. … He took up books as if they were people, and welcomed them into his family. — Brain Pickings

But to make that dream a reality, it’d have to be the Facebook to WordPress’ MySpace. So I gave some thought to what’d make my experience on the platform irressistible. And this is the order of my wish list, ranked by importance in what would actually get me hooked on Medium. Would love to hear your thoughts either as a response or comments on here or @mariosundar on Twitter. Here goes…

1. Smart Notifications

”A “like” on Facebook is a treat. You get a little red pop-up on your notifications icon, you see the little box on the lower-left corner of your screen describing the like, and you get that warm, albeit fleeting sense of pride. Someone liked your post. Your post! You savor it. You inevitably want more likes. You wait.” — The Atlantic

Facebook, which just last week, earned the amazing feat of drawing in 1 Billion people from across the world on to their platform in 1 single day (That’s 1 billion in 1 day!) has this uncanny ability to suck you in. Over the years I’ve been amazed at the simple yet effective ways in which Facebook draws us in. Every subtle change they make is to get you engaged, starting with making trivial the act of wishing someone on their birthday.

“The birthday reminder is the only real contribution Facebook has given humanity.” — Lewis Black

Unlike the silliness of Facebook updates, I think Notifications on Medium can draw me in by showing me updates on “people” (posts, highlights, responses) and “ideas” (Trending tags) that I truly care about. The problem with notifications across iOS and in general is that it’s crap, and so we’re trained to ignore them, but increase the quality of these notifications and we’ll follow.

The notifications were really intrusive on a day-to-day basis. The bottom line is that notifications are sacred and really high priority means that it’s something that’s actionable, and we should really enable prioritization. — NYC Media Lab

Frankly, the only content I wanna read is interesting voices from (a) from people in my social and professional graph, (b) people from my alma mater — colleges, companies I’ve worked for, and (c) influencers, writers whose work I care about and I include brands here. There could be an easy way for me to provide these cues to Medium, either when I sign up for the account or while I write my posts…

Trackbacks, Hashtags

“Exceptional ideas get read. Eventually.”

But Medium can change that dramatically. Medium can provide a force field for great content in a way that the printing press nor WordPress ever could.

What if I could extend my graph of interests (ideas and people) by sharing with Medium subtle hints of who (people) and what (ideas) I care about:

Who I care about: @notifications. Twitter was built around @mentions, which became the new personal trackback when it launched. Obviously, Facebook and LinkedIn do it these days, but it’s a simple way to increase higher quality notifications which will keep me coming back to the platform as a reader, and eventually as a writer. Additionally, this is also pulls in the others who are mentioned in the conversation. Sure, there might not be a flurry of these, but it is a set of higher quality notifications for the person who is mentioned or the topic that is hashtagged. More targeted notifications the better.

What I care about: #hashtags. Secondly, it’d be great to mention topics I care about while I write on Medium, with auto-suggest. This might be a simple and easy way to glean as much information on my interests as possible. And this could be a great way to curate the hottest topics of the day or month under a separate page based on my hashtag mentions in my posts. And making this trivial for me to share this information would increase the fluidity of ideas across the platform, which could then be put to best use in serving this hashtagged content to folks who search for it, in much the same way as Instagram does today.

2. Voices I Like, Read On The Fly

I wanna wake up each day, opening Medium on my iPhone on my way to work, to read the best commentary on the day’s breaking news. I wanna get to work and search for ideas on how to be better at what I do by searching and following trending tags. On my way back home, when I’m waiting in line at the grocery store I wanna be able to open up Medium to read the best original content that I’ve saved for later. And when it’s time to crash, I wanna read some of the classic pieces, from my favorite authors.

Finding tomorrow’s interesting voices (authors, bloggers, brands, is something that Medium does well) but curating and surfacing such content at all times during the day helps me build a habit.

What do I want when I walk into Medium? Yet again taking a page from Facebook, the most interesting content to me is either tags I’ve suggested or tags and stories liked by my concentric circles of family, friends, colleagues, industry peers, etc. Medium is beginning to prioritize that with their top three stories. There’s also got to be ways (like on Flipboard or Facebook) where I can thumbs up or thumbs down articles, yet again allowing readers like me give Medium subtle cues on my preferences and making my experience more delightful.

Medium can also create for us the first truly cross-platform (mobile, desktop) experience for reading. Kindle has already done that but letting me continue reading from where I left off across multiple platforms, likewise with writing (more on that in just a second), and irrespective of the device should be a killer feature.

And taking it one step further (and this might be a controversial idea) is I think Medium should become my defacto reading platform for articles of substance. By that I mean there could be room for Medium to become a Flipboard meets Instapaper, where I go to for my daily reading needs.

There’s got to be a way to make the distinction between original and syndicated content, the same way HBO and Netflix do to original programming produced for their platform versus content they syndicate.

Currently, Medium resembles HBO with it’s own original programming created by users on their platform. I suggest going outside of this realm to syndicating the best content available to read on the web and making that must-read content available to users whenever they want it, wherever they want it.

Now granted, curating these voices for the majority of people might be difficult initially, but a way out of this would be if Medium can become my reading platform of choice and there’s a huge opportunity where Instapaper and Pocket have failed. Here’s why I suggest that. I’m an avid reader and I’ve been using Instapaper for the longest time and realize there’s a better way to do this if the ultimate goal is to help me find (which I can do now), save (which even sites like Facebook are attempting to do now) and read later (the key being I’d like you to tell me when is later) because reading is one of those important-not-urgent, high satisfaction acts that is very low priority on our to-do lists.

This also gives Medium a trove of structured data that can be slice-and-diced while serving me articles I love to read (such as authors, publication, beat, etc.) Instapaper has this trove of information and I rarely go back to read what I’d like. I’d love for Medium to give me a chance to save articles to read later and then surface it to me, depending on variables like time of day, holidays, etc.

3. Write Anywhere, Post Anywhere

If reading cross-platform is important, writing requires this feature all the more since there’s a greater barrier to entry here. Medium is about writing and getting all of us, readers, to start writing — knowing we’ll be heard. As I wrote earlier, everybody has a book inside them, but getting them to write starts with making it as easy as possible for them to do that.

The Key: Multi-platform

As a writer, which I believe just the ability to jot down thoughts on my smartphone whenever they strike. Medium has already built this great user interface on the web but I still use iAWriter because it’s the best editing tool for writers I’ve seen that works across all platforms. The other day I jotted down a few thoughts on Medium, switched to safari to grab a quote and when I refreshed my Medium app, it restarted and I lost all my thoughts. Rest assured I never completed that post.

That’s the reason I use iAWriter, which allows me to pick up where I left off, whether I’m on my desktop or mobile. In addition they’ve created the best experience for a writer, whether it’s syntax mode or focus mode, by paying the greatest attention to the minute details that make writing a pleasure. I believe that’s the experience I’d expect, and nothing less, from Medium.

I’d love for Medium to become the de facto option for readers and writers across the globe. And for writers the opportunity to write fast, wherever I am all the while becoming a better artist is a huge value add.

p.s. I just stumbled upon the “Send to Mac” feature if you’re writing on Medium’s iOS app, but that’s still not a frictionless experience.

4. The Graph of Authors and Ideas

Everybody is a writer; whether it’s people or corporations, startups or brands, communities or colleges, news outlets or sports franchises, politicians, or artists or filmmakers.

Every writer or institution should have a voice on the web.

And every writer who thinks different, should have a megaphone on Medium.

Until now, for anyone to have a quality presence on the web they’ve had to either go to difficult-to-set up publishing platforms. Now imagine a profile page on Medium; it’s the (a) the easiest way for anybody or any company or any brand to share their values, (b) gets to them the the most qualified, engaged traffic and (c) finds them the the attention of major news organizations.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were Author “Profile pages” where there was an easy way to follow the “authors” (people, brands or companies) whose voice I’m interested in. Now you’re thinking but isn’t that Facebook. It is but the quality of the experience on Medium is heightened since you’re reading experience isn’t drowned out by the sound of selfies. So for those who are more interested in sharing their revelations, values and ideals about themselves, welcome to Medium. And author profile pages would be a great way to structure all the world’s collective wisdom in an easy to find and follow manner.

In the past, it used to be corporate blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn pages but Medium can be the one place to start telling your story in a way that no other site allows you because at the end of the day, you are the stories you tell.

5. Structured Search

The more that relevant profile pages, hashtags and trackbacks proliferate, the easier it’s gonna be to search through this growing compendium of the world’s wisdom and intelligence. One of my favorite pastimes is to watch old episodes of “The Daily Show” or “Charlie Rose” and the experience is made better by searching for artists whose work I enjoy or category of interviewee.

Now imagine something similar if I could search through historical archives to search the immense library of writing by themes (tragedy, life lessons, etc.), authors (Hemingway), or publications (Esquire, GQ, etc.)

It’s yet again taking the idea that stepping into the library of Alexandria, you’re sure to find cool stuff to read along different categories you care about. But Medium can level that up by creating a reading and writing platform for the ages that immortalizes ideas and thoughts across people, brands and communities. And the more structured data you can share with Medium on your profile page (profile information: college you went to, birthday, etc.), the more relevant reading material Medium can serve you.

That’s where LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram crush it. And Medium is just a step away from doing the same for reading and writing.