I’ve been enjoying visiting Medium and reading people’s short stories. And by short, I mean 2-10 minute reads. There’s actually an indicator for each story of how long it will take to read. How cool is that? Most of the stories are wonderful and thought-provoking, and certainly worth more than the price of admission (free!). I still don’t quite understand the organization of things (who can make a collection, can a story be in more than one collection, etc.), and it is a little difficult to find a certain story through searching. For instance, I was in the middle or reading a story about trail-running when I had to turn off the tablet. Later, I wanted to continue reading that story, but couldn’t find it. The search function didn’t find it either. I guess I need to be more liberal with my bookmarking. But there are so many interesting things to read, I find that my bookmarks list is getting long! (That’s a good thing)
On the downside, I did come across a story was less pure storytelling and more commercial-leaning. It’s a “story” about a nice new backpack and how this brand of backpack is now available in the UK. After a short description of the backpack, with very little practical information (“I’ll be doing a full review in a month or two“), there is a link to the backpack vendor’s store. That’s pretty much it. How did that story get posted? Have I been mistaken about what Medium is about? I decided to check the about page and found, “Medium is a new place on the Internet where people share ideas and stories that are longer than 140 characters and not just for friends. It’s designed for little stories that make your day better and manifestos that change the world.” It was a little strange and disheartening to find something that feels more like an advertisement than a “manifesto that changes the world”. It cheapens Medium. I just hope it’s not the direction Medium is headed, because the trend of personal blogs turning into business blogs saddens me, and I’d hate for Medium to follow that pattern.
This was a little hard for me to write because as some of you may know, I am crazy about bags and backpacks. I just don’t think that ads for them belong at Medium.
To finish up on a positive note, I’d like to recommend a few of the collections I have saved to my list. I hope you enjoy them!
- The LYD Essays : I’ve followed Ernie Hsiung on the Internet for a few years and was happy to see his stories on Medium. Funny and entertaining.
- Click the Shutter: Photography-related stories. Lots of inspiration here.
- Roaming the Earth: Great for those with wanderlust!
