Mediular — The Scheduler for Medium
Yeah, I am not really that creative with names
[Please note that I have removed Mediular from Web. It had a good run.]
So, I am pretty sure you must have heard the news that Medium is going through a lot of changes. One of those changes have been opening up the Publishing API.
I have been using Medium, mostly as a spectator, for more than a year now and simply love the design and experience of it.
So that is why, when I saw the post announcing the API, I started thinking about ways I can use it to create something valuable.
This is when I thought that a scheduler would be nice to have. I’ve myself not published some posts at times thinking that maybe publishing a post at 3 in the morning is not the best idea. I sleep on pushing the publish button and forget about it in the morning.
Scheduler would come in handy during those times.
Armed with a small idea, I started writing code when I ran into one small problem.
ACCESS TO API WASN’T OPEN FOR EVERYONE. YOU HAVE TO FILL A FORM AND WAIT AND WHAT NOT.
Great, now someone else will beat me to it.
Feeling disappointed, I went back to reading posts on Medium when suddenly I stumbled upon the API announcement again. This time I thought I should at least read up the docs.
While reading docs, I saw that there is one more way to use the APIs, and that didn’t require Medium’s intervention with the developer. It was, wait for it, Integration Token!
Now, since I was hacking around the standard way, I couldn’t have the “Login with Medium” button on the site. Which was kind of a bummer but hey, something’s better than nothing.
I wrote the app, than rewrote it because of some constraints I ran in to. All things considered, it took me about 6 hours from first line of code to last and I had a quick and dirty site ready for deployment.
I quickly bought the domain Mediular, deployed the site on AWS and boom. It was live.
I went and shared the site with my friends on Telegram and WhatsApp. Tweeted about it and then submitted it to Product Hunt.
Oh man, you won’t believe what happened next.
CRICKETS.
There weren’t many visitors in the first half an hour (2 to be precise). I tweeted out to Ryan Hoover who then upvoted and got the things rolling.
This just happened while writing this post — Product Hunt just tweeted about it. Yayy! :D
Coming back to stats, there have been about 50 visitors to the site and I am hoping with the tweet by Product Hunt, it’ll increase to at least 14,124,732 users in an hour or so.
I am just waiting to get access to Medium’s API so I can add “Login via Medium” as soon as possible. If anyone at Medium is reading this post, please give me access. Please please please. :)
All in all, it has been a fun day today. Working on adding a better writing experience and user authentication system. Very excited to see where it goes.
Give it a try, Mediular.com.
If you liked reading this, please hit the like button. It’s very encouraging to get those recommendations. :)
