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“Mini-Boost” Coming Soon to a Pub Near You

New “Feature Story” function to give editors power to increase distribution on one story a week

Patsy Fergusson
Fourth Wave
3 min readDec 14, 2024

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Graphic licensed from Adobe Stock

I got a very exciting email this week. It announced a new ability that will soon be made available to publication editors to feature one story a week. What do I mean by “feature?” This is how Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine put it in a blogpost:

Each publication will be able to feature stories to their followers. Our system will recommend these stories more highly in Digest emails, on the homepage For You feed, in the publication story page, and anywhere else a publication’s followers see its stories. — Coach Tony

So while the “feature story” function will not increase distribution platform-wide, like a boost, it will increase it among a publication’s followers, like a mini-boost. This sounds like great news to me.

A few stumbling blocks

One problem I have with the current distribution system is it doesn’t suggest a lot of stories that I want to read. If I follow a writer, and they post a new story, it won’t necessarily show up in my default “For You” feed. And if I shift over to the “Following” feed, where the writers and publications I follow are supposed to be featured, it won’t necessarily show up…

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Patsy Fergusson
Patsy Fergusson

Written by Patsy Fergusson

Tree hugger. Tour guide. Top Writer. Feminist. Newly-baptized Bay swimmer. Editor of Fourth Wave. https://medium.com/fourth-wave

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