Medium Review As a Blogging Platform

Among a plenty of free platforms for blogs, Medium has aroused our attention after we have reviewed a number of site building platforms including SquareSpace and Weebly previously. If you are a blogging novice looking for a dependable platform, then you may be curious about what exactly its blogging services like. Consequently, we intend to reveal the secret from the perspectives of merits and demerits with thorough analyses.

In August 2012, Medium was launched by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and Biz Stone as a blog publishing platform. Later, the founder decided to reform this platform to the ground by keeping in mind to encourage existing users of Twitter to create posts longer than the standardized content with 140 characters. In below, we work out the overall ratings of this platform after we have personally used its services for one month.

Medium Review

• Reputation
  
• Popularity
  
• Cost
  
• Usability
  
• Flexibility
  
• Support
  

Merits of Medium Blogging

Since its release in 2012, this platform makes its contributions without cost charged. In the following, we pay close attention to its advantages and disadvantages. Please keep scrolling down to learn details.

• Free Services – Every blogger has free accesses to the blogging services on condition that they have Twitter accounts by reason of its affiliation with Twitter.
• Manageable Dashboard – After you have accessed your Medium dashboard featuring a clean and clutter-free interface, it requires little effort to write a new post, check drafts, stats and bookmarks without going to a new link. What needs to be done is clicking the “M” in the top left corner after which you are able to write, upload and view your content according to your favor.
• Great Commenting System – The significance of commenting to both writers and readers cannot be emphasized too much since it plays a great role in getting feedbacks to obtain a clearer and deeper understanding of your readers.

In this part, Medium allows comment by permission only. Hence, after a piece of comment added, it will be published only after the permission of the original writer. This property is strength for those bloggers who expect to get full control of their blogs, however, it turns to be a weakness for those bloggers looking forward to active interaction. Next, we are to uncover the demerits of Medium.

Demerits of Medium Blogging

Since every coin has two sides, Medium also has its shortcomings. Please move on if you want to get a clear idea of its demerits.

• No Sense of Ownership – Medium lacks the support for custom domains, which is destined to negatively influence those bloggers yearning for the developing of their own identity and brand. Being different with its competitor such as WordPress.com coming with easy customization of domain, Medium may disappoint bloggers to some extent.
• Standardized Content of 140 Characters – Since Medium comes into being, it standardizes the shown content of blogs by showing only the title and a summary consisting of no more than 140 characters which definitely poses strict requirements for bloggers in the endeavor to attract their readers. Meanwhile, a vast majority of bloggers respond that they are looking forward to working over more topics in more details but not restricted by characters.
• No Optimization for Mobiles – In October 2013, quietly, this blogging platform is opened to all authors. Nevertheless, at present, there are still no launched applications for the composing of posts on mobile devices in the field. What can be found is the read-only application for iOS.
• The Lacking of Customization Options – The demerit that must be mentioned is its lacking of customization options without which you are incapable of customizing many elements including plugins and themes and so forth.

Summary > Medium Is Only Good to Read and Write

Considering the merits and demerits above, objectively speaking, Medium blogging is suitable for blog fans who are fond of writing and reading. Whether to employ it to building a blogging rests with what you want. To be exact, if you have enough budget but get command of little coding knowledge, SquareSpace is better. Besides, if you expect much more usability and extendability, then Textpattern turns to be a better option.