Medium or the TED of Writing

The similarities and the differences

I like TED talks. Maybe that’s why I like Medium so much. It never occurred to me but the funny fake medium article titles posted by @FalseMedium made me think about it.

Content and Vision

TED talks tend to be centered around innovation and technology. Speakers have ‘Ideas worth spreading’ and they give them in a clear and succinct speech. They even enforce an eighteen minutes time limit. Medium with its highly praised editor and simple well-thought-out design encourages authors to write posts in the same manner TED Speakers write their speeches. Medium also displays the time it takes to read each article thus enforcing an indirect restriction on post length.

In fact, the vast majority of medium posts keep it under ten minutes with an average of five minutes per post. Posts on medium tend to revolve around spreading ideas and talking about personal experiences mainly to inspire, educate or simply share. The same is true for TED Talks.

Medium believes that sharing ideas moves the world forward.
Ready to Write? — About Medium

You are now part of a global community of doers who believe in the power of
sharing ideas.
Intro (Page 2) — TEDxManual

Quality

Medium has a great way ensuring quality. From their recommendation system to the focus on content rather than who writes it. It all makes for a fascinating way of bringing the best content to their home page.

TED and TEDx conferences also ensure quality control mainly by being picky about who speaks and by enforcing strict rules about how these events get organized. They even have rigorous control over who gets to organize a TEDx event. TEDxManual.

Content promotion

Medium has their editor’s picks that get featured on the home page and shared through their social accounts with hundred thousands of followers to see. TED also feature the best TEDx talks on its website and Youtube channel (with close to half a million subscribers) which leads to the same kind of getting the best to the top and ensuring that quality content gets the recognition and echo it deserves.

We share some of our favorite posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Ready to Write? — About Medium

Speakers/Authors

Both TED and Medium attract amazing speakers/authors that generate awesome content. This is partly due to the reasons mentioned above. It’s the culture that each of them has created. It simply motivates the best and brightest to share for the sake of sharing. The satisfaction of knowing that what you wrote or said made an impact on the world.

Audience

The same goes for the audience . An audience starving for inspiration, ideas and interesting stories. It’s clearly not the average joe that each one is after. They innately target a kind of ‘elite’. It’s part of what they have become.

All those similarities aside, each has their unique taste and added value.

The differences

Medium tend to be more agile. Content flows continuously and it’s more centered around creating the content whereas TED is more about the consumption of it. Medium really stands in converting readers to writers. It doesn’t draw a line between the two. It’s more like twitter that way. You get to consume, create and interact. It’s just a part of the experience that you play all parts.

Although Medium is in its early stages and there’s no telling of how it will evolve over the years, it’s currently fostering a new kind of sharing that’s deep, useful and accessible to the general public. More accessible and less elitist than TED.

TED and TEDx are events held in real life. They encourage networking in real life which makes it more effective in bringing like-minded people or people who simply share the same goals together. From that aspect, it’s like Facebook meets LinkedIn of the real world.

My conclusion is that both are trying to enable people to share and consume interesting and original content but each is doing it their own unique way.