Medium Series are the new Powerpoint
A couple of days ago I wrote about the new Stories feature from Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp, concluding with a prediction of Facebook’s strategy.
Today the Stories party got even bigger: Medium launched Series!
At first glance, it looks like yet another version of the feature known originally from Snapchat.
But after checking a couple of series on Medium, especially ones with more serious content like the series by Melinda Gates, it feels different. Yet still familiar …
Hmm, wait a minute!
This is more like the younger, cooler brother of Powerpoint, the biggest difference being that it’s consumed in portrait mode instead of landscape, just like the Snapchat kids showed us.
And it makes a lot of sense.
Presentations are one of the most powerful ways to tell a story. We use them all the time in the offline world: at work, events, meetings, how come we do it so rarely online?
And you know what? I’m feeling them. They fit into the Medium type of content just as well as they fit into Snapchat’s filtered selfies and the boomerangs of Instagram.
But what user problem does this solve — you may ask
I think it’s a mix of jumping on the Stories bandwagon, an answer to our shortened attention span (hint from the tutorial: “you can pick up a series from wherever you left off”), but mostly it’s about introducing a new way to consume information.
Finding the Medium Way
In broader sense, I take this as a sign that Medium got the message.
In order to be successful and get the hype train going for both users and investors, they need to come up with an original story. Something fresh from the ground up, not just a repackaging of old blogging platforms. Mobile-only, not mobile-first. And this is where series shines.
Medium embraced mobile as a channel that has different patterns and interactions, one that provides new possibilities. They understood that it’s not just another platform that gives you more reach.
This is what Medium’s CEO Ev Williams meant when he switched gears and announced their renewed focus, firing a big part of the sales and advertisement team while doubling down on product and innovation. It surely sounds to be in line with their mission statement:
To build a platform that defined a new model for media on the internet
So 👏 Medium for being one more company brave enough to innovate.
But without wanting to sound too cynical, the elephant is still in the room: what’s the business model?
