Logging in to your Medium account allows us to deliver the most relevant and timely stories directly to you, based on your interests. When you follow users, publications, and tags (topics) on Medium, you’re customizing the content you receive every time you log in to Medium.com and the Medium iOS or Android app, and in our email Digests.

Once you’re logged in to your account, you can visit this dashboard at any time to find personalized suggestions for whom and what to follow next. Here’s a breakdown of what following means on Medium:

Follow Users

You can follow any user on Medium — including amazing writers, world leaders, entertaining storytellers, and even your friends. When you follow someone on Medium, we will prioritize showing you Medium posts written or recommended by that user (via the heart symbol). You’ll also be able to view passages they’ve highlighted within stories.

Follow Publications

You can follow publications, which are started by editors for a community of readers and feature posts written by many users. On Medium, you can tap into a thriving ecosystem of popular, passionate publications all in one place. The Ringer, ThinkProgress, Backchannel, The Mission, Cuepoint, and thousands of other publications are all on Medium, ready for you to follow. We’ve joined in, too: We started an official publication for news from Medium called 3 Min Read.

We will prioritize showing you posts that are posted in publications you follow. You also can receive Letters from editors of those publications with special content and updates. (When logged in, you can always manage your email settings for publications you follow here.)

Follow Tags

Every post on Medium can include up to five tags, which the writer chooses to tell readers what topics her story is about. When you follow a tag you’re interested in, we will prioritize showing you popular posts about that topic. You can follow broad topics like music, politics, travel, sports, or tech, or more specific topics like your favorite TV show, city, or interest.

Have tips for other readers on how to optimize their Medium reading experience? Write a response below and share.

Scheduled Publishing

With our new schedule to publish feature, you can specify a date and time in the future for your stories to be published.

Clicking on “schedule to publish” from this screen will enable you to queue up stories to be published when you want instead of when you have the time.

You can now set your schedule to publish at peak traffic times and reward your followers with a steady stream of new material released on a more regular basis.

Connect Twitter to Publications

You can now connect your Twitter account to your Medium publication. When you do, any followers of that Twitter account who also have Medium accounts will automatically become followers of that publication.

If you go to your publication’s “About” page, you’ll now see a Connect to Twitter option:

Note: Your publication’s Twitter account may not already be linked to a Medium user account, and you won’t be able to use it to log into Medium.

Letter Stats

Lastly, you can now view statistics for Letters sent through Medium publications, by going to the Letters page of your publication:

For any Letters sent starting Jan. 6, 2016 (when this feature came online), you can track how many letters were sent, how many were opened, and how many people clicked on one or more links in your Letter.

That’s all for now! As always, any questions or feedback on these or any other Medium features, drop us a line at yourfriends@medium.com or visit our Help Center for more information.

New Tools for Publishers and Writers was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The new header is more compact, with the goal of getting you to the writing more quickly. We removed the cover image, so you can actually see the post and interaction lists now, even on mobile. We also put a simpler list of associated publications directly under the bio.

Content sections are organized to elevate your best original writing as an author as well as your actions as a reader:

• There is still the option to feature a post at the top of the page.
• The Latest section contains the three most recent posts from the author. This is populated by full stories or “meatier” responses.
• Highlights shows the four most recent highlights made by that user, as well as a link to a full list.
• The Recommend list is a more a compact section showing four of the most recent Medium posts recommended by the user, with a link to a full list.
• The More section is a reverse-chronological listing of every post and response written by the author.

Go take a look. We hope these changes will showcase your work as a writer and your curation skills as a reader. As always, we’d love to hear your feedback at yourfriends@medium.com.

Your Medium Profile Just Got a Facelift was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We are a small design team with large ambitions. We work closely with engineers, product managers, product scientists, and support. We make pixels and prototypes, but first and foremost we think and we write. We’re never happy with what’s out there, and we know how to channel this into something positive.

We tackle tons of challenges: from tactical typography, to years-ahead ideas of how Medium should evolve. What’s the right balance between self-expression and design consistency? How to walk the line between “perfectly crafted” and “today, in the hands of our users”? How to build a platform that accommodates various ways of writing, reading, and interacting, and does this with mindfulness, empathy, and in style? Oh, by the way, all that just on a regular Monday.

Want to know more? Read a testimonial from one of our product designers. Or, follow us on Twitter!

Open positions

• Product Designers, San Francisco
• Senior Product Designers, San Francisco
• Branding & Communications Designers, San Francisco
• Product & Marketing Copywriters, San Francisco

If you’re interested, let us know.

You’d be working with…

☯ Brad Artziniega ☯ often works on the hairy, tough interaction systems. If you ever highlighted anything on Medium, or had a conversation here, you’ve seen Brad’s designs in place. Before joining Medium, Brad was at IDEO where he lead projects at the intersection of hardware and software. Outside of work, he’s usually living the dream with his wife and dog, surfing, hiking, or just watering the veggies.

Paige Bennett loves to meet Medium’s users and find out what makes them tick. Her days are spent diving into research that can help Medium meet their needs and goals. Paige got her start as a TV news journalist before traveling the world doing ethnographic research. In her off time, she loves to visit Sonoma, make furniture with her husband, and think about where to travel next.

Peter Cho works on making Medium an even more empowering and delightful place for creators to share ideas. Before Medium, he worked as head of UX for Google’s Project Ara modular smartphone and led the design team at Inkling for five years. In a past life, he experimented with code and type. He also made zines on his Mac Plus and ImageWriter II as a kid, so you could say he’s had a lifelong interest in digital publishing.

Andrew Crow cut his teeth as a designer with bluelines, paste-ups and hand-setting type. He has strong opinions about brand and product design. You may have seen his handiwork in the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. Before joining Medium, Andrew was Head of Design at Uber, Global Director of Design and Brand at GE, and an experience designer at Adaptive Path. You can find him on Twitter. He likes to poke things with sticks.

Sasha Lubomirsky thinks a lot about users: what their needs are, and what awesome experiences might be dreamt up to support them. She’s helped the team understand how people read, which informed the iOS app. Before Medium, Sasha worked at Airbnb, Android, and YouTube, where she helped establish design research as a discipline. Not coincidentally, Sasha loves writing, travel, her phone, and pugs (or at least videos thereof).

Erich Nagler is a visual storyteller with a background in editorial design, and a love for illustration, photography, and GIFs. Before Medium, Erich was an art director at the New York Times, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, and a designer at Pentagram. At Medium, he leads marketing and brand design, and works with publications to help their brands and their stories connect with readers. He might’ve been an interior designer in another life.

Noah Rabinowitz is busy making Medium a daily must-read for designers, filmmakers, artists, photographers, and digital storytellers of all sorts. He has written for art magazines, photo edited for major news outlets, and has done creative consulting for advertising. Noah also shoots photos/videos for himself and others. One time, during a press conference in the Rose Garden, President George W. Bush called him a hippie.

Tess Rothstein has one mission: to understand and advocate for Medium’s users. She sees the heroism of thoughtful online expression and works to make Medium second-nature, enriching, and empowering. Tess’ prior feats include consulting projects for tech giants and healthcare non-profits. She likes dancing to the thunder of her own drum, meeting strangers, and asking “Why?” in different languages.

Marcin Wichary is a design lead and an occasional typographer. He’d be to blame if you encounter underlines, quotation marks, or stumble upon a yellow TK. He also spends time thinking about the life of the team and less glamorous design challenges. Before Medium, Marcin worked at Google (building search, Chrome and Pac-Man), and spent a year at Code for America, helping improve the criminal justice system and urban design.

Open positions

• Product Designers, San Francisco
• Senior Product Designers, San Francisco
• Branding & Communications Designers, San Francisco
• Product & Marketing Copywriters, San Francisco

We are hiring for these roles right now, but perhaps you know something we don’t? Medium is always seeking talented, thoughtful people. Get in touch.

We’re hiring! was originally published in Designing Medium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

But we live in the real world and recognize that sometimes you may not want to get in a discussion. Sometimes, you just need to come and post. We welcome that use of Medium as well and want to help you feel safe and comfortable doing so.

You can now choose to hide responses from the bottom of your post:

We also realize other users may want to use your post as a starting point for their own thoughts, so they can still write a response by clicking the response bubble at the bottom of the page.

When you hide responses, the following happens:

• No responses or quote responses will be displayed at the bottom of your post, regardless of who wrote or recommended them. There will be no response count displayed.
• A message stating that you have chosen not to display responses will appear at the bottom of your post.
• Other users will still be able to initiate a response to your post by clicking the response bubble. That response will have a link back to the original story, broadcast to their network, and appear on their profile page. However, the response will not appear at the bottom of the page.
• You will not receive any notification or email that a response has been written to your post.
• You will still see responses as referrers to your post in your stats.

You can choose to show responses at any time via the “…” menu, and they will appear at the bottom of the post after refreshing the page.

If you have any questions or concerns, please write us at yourfriends@medium.com.

Hiding Responses was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here at Medium, the editor is the heart of our product. What starts in the editor continues elsewhere, though: stories are read on gigantic desktop monitors and three-inch phones screens and exist as abbreviated teasers on the homepage, on profiles, and in emails.

As a result, when we think about the editor, we also have to think what happens after the editor — how stories look on all the different screens on which people read them. This creates two challenges:

• Many writers use big screens, but most readers use small screens.
• A story exists on its own page, but it also needs to be presented in shared spaces (homepage, author pages, publication pages, emails, etc.).

With today’s Medium update, we’re changing our styles to fix some problems and make it much easier for stories to look good on screens of all sizes. We’re adjusting the headline sizes, removing an option to center headlines, and limiting soft breaks to body text.

One example of the problem we want to solve can be seen above: a quote, carefully laid out on a bigger screen, that would look bad on a screen of a different size.

Here’s another example we have seen over and over again: text centered on a big screen, appearing with a lot of unexpected space on a small screen — none of this anticipated by authors, but puzzling for many readers. Removing empty paragraphs solves this problem and creates a consistent expectation of what happens with the story.

The last example is a headline, looking great centered on a big screen… but appearing shifted and unintentional on a small one:

Also, the mix of centered and left-aligned headlines has made it hard for people to quickly scan and find a good read within streams of stories. As we heard from one reader, “I’ve totally skipped over posts in the feed because I didn’t realize where one ended and one began.”

In addition to the above-mentioned changes that make it easier for your story to shine no matter what kind of shining rectangle your reader finds it on, there are more changes we’re introducing today: those that aid in writing a story and helping to decorate it, and those that make it easier for it to find its audience.

Hope you enjoy them and… tell us your story today.

Of screens big and small was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Do I have to agree to these terms of use? If you want to use the API, yes. We’re offering use of the API only on the terms posted on this page. By using the Medium API, you’re agreeing to follow them. So, if you don’t agree to any of the terms, Medium doesn’t grant you a license to use the API.

For how long can I use the API? Your license to the Medium API continues until it’s ended by you or Medium.

How would the license end? Either party can end the license any time for any or no reason. If you want to end the license, just stop using the Medium API. That will end the license. If you violate any of the terms below, your license to use the API terminates automatically and right away. If Medium sends you a written notice terminating your license, that also terminates your license right away.

How can I stay up to date on the terms? We might update these terms from time to time. But we’ll keep up-to-date terms at this URL and save each version on GitHub.

1. Licensed Uses and Restrictions.

Medium owns the Medium API. Medium licenses it to you on these terms.

• You can use it anywhere in the world.
• Your use is non-exclusive, so others can use it too.

Medium hosts user generated content (“UGC”) such as text or images. UGC is owned by the users (or someone who allowed them to use it) and not by Medium. You agree to use UGC only in ways authorized by the user who posted it, such as providing attribution or otherwise complying with Creative Commons licenses.

Here are things you can’t do:

• Sell, lease, or sublicense the Medium API or access to it.
• Use the Medium API for any application that substantially replaces the core user experience of Medium’s website or apps.
• Do anything that could mislead users into thinking you’re offering a replacement for Medium or that you or your product are endorsed or created by Medium.
• Use the Medium API to spam or harass anyone.
• Participate in any “follow” or “recommend” exchange program.
• Use the Medium API to post automatically generated content to Medium, including posts, follows, recommends, or responses not initiated by a Medium user.
• Conceal your identity or your application’s identity when requesting authorization to use the Medium API.
• Cache or store any UGC or user data except for the reasonable period necessary to provide your service.
• Use the Medium API for any application that is spyware, adware, or any other malicious software, or is used in connection with any such software.
• Use the Medium API in a way that violates the law or any person’s rights, including intellectual property and privacy rights.
• Use Medium as a generic image hosting service for banner advertisements, graphics, or similar.
• Use the Medium API in a way that undermines the stability of Medium’s servers or the behavior of other applications using the Medium API. Medium may rate limit or block applications that make a large number of calls to the API that aren’t primarily in response to direct user actions.

By accepting these terms, you agree to comply with the Medium Terms of Service. Medium reserves all rights not expressly granted in these terms.

2. Trademark.

You may use the Medium word mark or logo in connection with the Medium API as approved by Medium. You agree to seek prior approval in writing from Medium before any use of Medium’s logo or word mark.

3. Relationship of the Parties.

Medium has certain rights in the API under the laws of the U.S. and other countries. Medium’s rights apply to the Medium API and all its output and executables. You agree to abide by all applicable proprietary rights laws.

These terms don’t implicitly grant you rights in any intellectual property owned or licensed by Medium. The only such rights you receive under these Terms are those explicitly granted.

4. Support.

Medium may choose to provide you with support or modifications for the Medium API in its sole discretion. Medium may change, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Medium API, including such support or modifications, at any time without notice or liability.

5. Fees.

Medium is currently providing you the API for free.

6. Disclaimer of Warranty.

Medium’s providing the API to you as is. That means it doesn’t come with any warranty, express or implied. No implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, availability, security, title or non-infringement.

We’ve made this API as reliable as possible. But the Medium API probably won’t be perfect. So, we’re telling you now, it might have bugs, inaccuracies or interruptions.

You use the Medium API at your own discretion and risk.

7. Limitation of Liability.

Medium won’t be liable to you for any damages that arise from using the API. This includes all of types of damages (indirect, incidental, consequential, special or exemplary). And it includes all kinds of legal claims, such as breach of contract, breach of warranty, tort, or any other loss.

8. Release and Waiver.

You release and waive all claims against Medium to the maximum extent permitted by law. This means all types of claims, damages, costs and expenses arising from your use of the Medium API. This includes all claims against any of Medium’s subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents, licensors, co-branders or other partners, and employees.

If you’re a California resident, you waive your rights under California Civil Code 1542, which says: “A general release does not extend to claims which the creditor does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release, which if known by him or her must have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor.”

You understand that you or Medium might later find out that a fact relating to this release is different than what we now believe. You accept and assume the risk of such possible differences in fact.

You expressly waive all rights and benefits you may have under any other source of law of similar effect, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

9. Indemnity.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to indemnify Medium against any third-party claim arising from or related to your use of the Medium API. This indemnity obligation to Medium includes Medium’s subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents, licensors, co-branders or other partners, and employees. This indemnity obligation includes any liability or expense arising from all claims, losses, damages (actual and/or consequential), suits, judgments, litigation costs and attorneys’ fees. Medium will work in good faith to give you written notice of any such claim.

10. General Terms.

10.1. Relationship of the Parties. You and Medium are acting independently of each other. Neither will act as partner, joint venturer, agent, employee or employer of the other. You won’t have any express or implied authority to create or assume any obligation for Medium or on behalf of it.

10.2. Severability. If any provision of these terms is found invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, You and Medium agree that the court should try to give effect to the parties’ intentions as reflected in the provision and that other provisions of these will remain in full effect.

10.3. Forum and Choice of Law. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to its conflict of law provisions. You and Medium agree that any suit arising from these terms must take place in a court located in San Francisco, California.

10.4. No Waiver of Rights. If Medium doesn’t exercise any right it has under these terms, any such inaction doesn’t waive the applicable right or provision.

10.5. Interpretation. These terms may not be construed against either party.

10.6. Entire Agreement. These terms are the entire agreement between Medium and you concerning Medium’s API.

Medium usernames are claimed on a first-come, first-served basis. A username can only be attached to one account at a time.

Inactivity

We encourage you to remain active with your Medium account. This activity can include recommending, highlighting, or publishing. Accounts may be removed after 6 months of inactivity. We don’t accept requests for inactive accounts, unless you own a registered trademark for it.

Trademarks

Username trademark violations may involve using a trademarked logo, business or product name in a way likely to confuse people. For more information, read our Trademark Policy.

Parody Accounts

Medium allows parody and fan accounts. Those accounts must be clearly marked as such, and need to adhere to the following guidelines:

• The bio must directly state that the account is not affiliated with the targeted subject by using words such as “parody,” “fake,” “not,” “false,” or “fan.” There’s no specific formula you must use for the disclaimer, but it must be quickly and clearly evident this is the intention of the account to any audience.
• The Medium name and username must not be the exact same as the targeted subject, and should contain a disclaiming word such as “parody,” “fake,” “not,” “false,” or “fan.” For example, if you are parodying John Smith, your username can’t be @johnsmith.

Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in suspension or removal of the Medium account.

Medium Username Policy was originally published in Medium Policy on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

June 24, 2015

SAN FRANCISCO - A native Android app for Medium, born into captivity two months ago, was set free at an undisclosed location in western San Francisco on Wednesday.

According to officials, Medium for Android, which underwent extensive testing and training to prepare for the move, is the first official Medium app for Android to be released from captivity. Video footage shows the app initially reluctant to leave the cage, but eventually taking its first tentative steps into the world.

The app was picked up almost immediately by a passing hiker, who promptly created a Medium account via Google and began writing a new post about her serendipitous discovery, directly from the Android app itself.

A Medium spokesperson asked that all questions be directed to the FAQ or yourfriends@medium.com.

Medium for Android Released into the Wild was originally published in 3 min read on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.