8 Features I Want To See On Medium (Updated)
It will generate more revenue
I am purposefully targeting Medium and Medium Staff. So far congrats, you have done a wonderful job for writers from all walks of life.
But because we are human beings, we thrive to excel and always push forward for the betterment of humanity. So here are some features I would appreciate seeing on Medium.
1. Global Payment System
I wrote an article about the things that freak me out about Medium, one of them is the limitation of the Stripe payment system, Stripe only pays few countries. Though there are many reasons for this, of which could be political and security reasons. I still think that cannot be justified. Because a company like Google can pay anyone almost all over the world.
2. Paying for referrals and external traffic
Sometimes when you look at everything, it is about business, if I bring you a customer, don’t you think it is only fair to be rewarded? If I share my content on my Twitter account or Facebook and bring you a potential subscriber, wouldn’t that be fair to also get my cut? (as I was writing this, they published about Medium referral program)
This brings another issue that I have noticed I have lots of organic external traffic, but it is shooting blanks. I don’t get a dime for that traffic, even if they read the entire post. I think we should at least split the loss. You pay me half or a quarter of what you pay me for the subscribers.
3. Pay Editors, Proofreaders, & Translators
A lot of medium writers are professional writers, editors, and proofreaders. There are some who don’t write as much but enjoy reading if there is a way especially on publications, where writers could agree to share a percentage of generated earnings based on the amount of time used to edit and proofread their contents.
A lot would jump on board and be permanent editors or proofreaders, so the final content produced would be well-reviewed and presentable. This will give an opportunity for amateur writers to produce professional-grade content.
4. Global translation
There are writers, editors, and translators all over the World, the biggest barrier is language, Medium is based on English-speaking communities, have you ever thought about how it would be like if one article could be translated into multiple languages? this means more exposure and growth of a global community.
I know people could easily use google translate, that is one way to tackle this problem, but what I propose is to use human translators, who can read and translate it natively because, besides translation, there are concepts and symbols that are fundamentally different where google would not understand, then the revenue generated would be shared between the author and translators and it could be optional.
5. Book Publishing.
So far a lot of medium writers are book authors, where some authors would like to publish either part of their book on medium or their entire book. I saw how Leonard Crane explaining how he published his novel on medium. The challenges of publishing a book are if the post is long, someone is forced to manually search where they left off, and the organization of chapters becomes a disaster.
I suggest there should be publication designed only for book publishing with features like table of contents, pick up where you left, reading mode, upload pdf, doc or text files of your books, citations, glossary, endnotes, and footnotes.
6. All things Audible
We are not limited to only reading things with our eyes, actually, it is not recommended to spend a lot of time on a computer or mobile screen. Instead of only focusing on intaking information with our eyes, why not implement podcasts and narration?
Besides reading your own writing out loud, text to speech technology is advanced enough to be as close as human sound. Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are on the frontline of text-to-speech technology. This will also not leave out those who are hearing disabilities.
This will enable people to use medium even outside when you are jogging, driving to work, working on your yard, and so on.
7.Sponsored Articles
I know the number one policy on Medium is no Ads, but what about if someone is a newbie, they don’t have any followers, knows nothing about proper tags and such. But they want their writing to reach a targeted audience.
Would be nice for writers to be able to promote their content to non-subscribers so that they could reach more people. This will bring more revenue on medium at the same time.
8. API and open to third-party apps.
A lot of people here are already subscribers to Grammarly and many other tools, where it would help to integrate such apps natively on medium instead of depending on the browser.
This will help in the translation of content to multiple languages, converting articles into podcasts by using text-to-speech technology, automatically share content to social media, and even customization of themes.
What is the Verdict?
As a writer, my weapon is my keyboard, and my sword is my pen, I can only point some things out to expect some implementation. I am sure there are good reasons, But me being on the other side of the fence I hope you can all see it through my eye and consider what I am suggesting.
Oh! by the way, maybe people could also be paid to think?
8 Features I Want To See On Medium (Updated)
It will generate more revenue
I am purposefully targeting Medium and Medium Staff. So far congrats, you have done a wonderful job for writers from all walks of life.
But because we are human beings, we thrive to excel and always push forward for the betterment of humanity. So here are some features I would appreciate seeing on Medium.
1. Global Payment System
I wrote an article about the things that freak me out about Medium, one of them is the limitation of the Stripe payment system, Stripe only pays few countries. Though there are many reasons for this, of which could be political and security reasons. I still think that cannot be justified. Because a company like Google can pay anyone almost all over the world.
2. Paying for referrals and external traffic
Sometimes when you look at everything, it is about business, if I bring you a customer, don’t you think it is only fair to be rewarded? If I share my content on my Twitter account or Facebook and bring you a potential subscriber, wouldn’t that be fair to also get my cut? (as I was writing this, they published about Medium referral program)
This brings another issue that I have noticed I have lots of organic external traffic, but it is shooting blanks. I don’t get a dime for that traffic, even if they read the entire post. I think we should at least split the loss. You pay me half or a quarter of what you pay me for the subscribers.
3. Pay Editors, Proofreaders, & Translators
A lot of medium writers are professional writers, editors, and proofreaders. There are some who don’t write as much but enjoy reading if there is a way especially on publications, where writers could agree to share a percentage of generated earnings based on the amount of time used to edit and proofread their contents.
A lot would jump on board and be permanent editors or proofreaders, so the final content produced would be well-reviewed and presentable. This will give an opportunity for amateur writers to produce professional-grade content.
4. Global translation
There are writers, editors, and translators all over the World, the biggest barrier is language, Medium is based on English-speaking communities, have you ever thought about how it would be like if one article could be translated into multiple languages? this means more exposure and growth of a global community.
I know people could easily use google translate, that is one way to tackle this problem, but what I propose is to use human translators, who can read and translate it natively because, besides translation, there are concepts and symbols that are fundamentally different where google would not understand, then the revenue generated would be shared between the author and translators and it could be optional.
5. Book Publishing.
So far a lot of medium writers are book authors, where some authors would like to publish either part of their book on medium or their entire book. I saw how Leonard Crane explaining how he published his novel on medium. The challenges of publishing a book are if the post is long, someone is forced to manually search where they left off, and the organization of chapters becomes a disaster.
I suggest there should be publication designed only for book publishing with features like table of contents, pick up where you left, reading mode, upload pdf, doc or text files of your books, citations, glossary, endnotes, and footnotes.
6. All things Audible
We are not limited to only reading things with our eyes, actually, it is not recommended to spend a lot of time on a computer or mobile screen. Instead of only focusing on intaking information with our eyes, why not implement podcasts and narration?
Besides reading your own writing out loud, text to speech technology is advanced enough to be as close as human sound. Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are on the frontline of text-to-speech technology. This will also not leave out those who are hearing disabilities.
This will enable people to use medium even outside when you are jogging, driving to work, working on your yard, and so on.
7.Sponsored Articles
I know the number one policy on Medium is no Ads, but what about if someone is a newbie, they don’t have any followers, knows nothing about proper tags and such. But they want their writing to reach a targeted audience.
Would be nice for writers to be able to promote their content to non-subscribers so that they could reach more people. This will bring more revenue on medium at the same time.
8. API and open to third-party apps.
A lot of people here are already subscribers to Grammarly and many other tools, where it would help to integrate such apps natively on medium instead of depending on the browser.
This will help in the translation of content to multiple languages, converting articles into podcasts by using text-to-speech technology, automatically share content to social media, and even customization of themes.
What is the Verdict?
As a writer, my weapon is my keyboard, and my sword is my pen, I can only point some things out to expect some implementation. I am sure there are good reasons, But me being on the other side of the fence I hope you can all see it through my eye and consider what I am suggesting.
Oh! by the way, maybe people could also be paid to think?
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