What Medium is for

I’ve been blogging since 2007. I wrote in several platforms, including shared and self-hosted ones. Since march 10th, I have the honour to write in Medium, and now I have a crystal clear idea of what Medium is for.

Medium is for writing. And enjoy writing.
Medium is for reading. And enjoy reading.

Nothing less. Nothing more.

The action of typing in a keyboard has been present in my life for as long as I can remember. I can look back in time, when we learnt typing. Our mother had an old, ugly, heavy, tough, cold and loud typewriter. My brother and I didn’t liked typing so much. We had a boring learning handbook with repetitive sequences of letters, and passages from “Don Quijote de la Mancha” (Don Quixote).

Time passed, and those long and boring afternoons learning to write words fast by pressing keys had its reward. The first computer came, and then technology entered our home. Then, quickly all things became digital, as fast as our world became digital too.

I have always enjoyed reading and writing, and tried to do it the right way: with no misspellings and grammar mistakes (although writing in English may be a little more difficult for me sometimes).

In recent months, I became a little bit disenchanted about writing. I found no reasons to do it on my blog, had no stories to tell, and finally closed it. Maybe I get bored of writing about nothing. Too many information in my hand, too many things to read, too many noise in the conversation. Too many disgraceful reasons to quit writing, that’s the naked truth.

But then, I discovered Medium. I’m a fervent twitter user, and so Medium was the perfect platform for me to write again.

I must admit that around 22:30 h. (spanish time), when I get the invitation email, and my wife thought that I went mad. I broke out exclaiming “I have an invitation, I have an invitation” with my eyes wide open and an ear to ear smile in my face. Turned on my computer, and started “playing” with my new toy. The excitement was so great that I had to go to sleep and get back next day.

A few things you should know about Medium:

It’s clear

There are no distractions. It’s not a CMS. It’s a publishing platform. You have an image, a headline, and text. Some notes in the right side of the text, images in the middle… bold, italic, links and quotes. Who needs more? “Proffesional writers” feel comfortable with a pencil and a notebook. You should do with Medium WYSIWYG.

It’s fast

I spent less than three minutes configuring the environment. Then, started writing my first post.

Just sit down, and write.

And that’s it. Type, type and type. Type again. Think, and type again. Type and think. I was hooked again, as I never thought I would be.

When you finish writing, you can of course share and recommend. Share in twitter, recommend your favorite writings of someone else, and they appear in your Medium “space”. Simple. Straight. Clear. Enough.

But then, I realised that was missing a few things. In my work, I intensively use WordPress, not as blogging platform but as CMS. And the simplicity of the writing interface was too much simple for my complex mind. Also, the impossibility of embedding codes (videos, iframes, etc…) bothered me. I felt shocked, so cheated. I wanted my money back ( ;-) ).

How wrong was I. The more I wrote in Medium, the more I liked it. I understood that Medium was about ideas, concepts, thoughts, sharing life experiences… not about flashing shiny fonts and images full of javascript effects.

In the begining, if you aren’t comfortable with Shakespeare’s language, Medium will make you feel awkward. But if you overcome those first five minutes, it will be a delightful playing experience for you. One day, Medium will also be available in other languages, and then, these first five minutes will vanish magically.

Of course, the premise for enjoying Medium is that you enjoy writing and reading.

So, that’s it. Medium is the blank paper sheet, and your keyboard is again a typewriter keyboard. Go write.