<
https://www.fastcompany.com/91134093/medium-growth-under-tony-stubblebine>
"When Medium launched in 2011, it did so with a promise to make “sharing
information virtually effortless.” As its founder, former Twitter CEO Ev
Williams, would quickly discover, it was not effortless. And for 13 years, the
blogging platform has struggled to find its way.
And yet it could be said that our brave new world was created in its image. The
creator economy is an estimated $250 billion industry. Every journalist has
some kind of newsletter now. And we’re finally at a moment when users are once
again seeking out human curation. Somehow, seemingly against all odds, Medium
might be perfectly suited to this moment.
But first it will have to navigate what is quite possibly the biggest upheaval
in the basic foundation of the internet since the invention of the smartphone.
A tidal wave of AI tools has hit the internet in the past few years, each aimed
to replace the humans and human-powered algorithms we’ve relied on for more
than a decade. Whether it’s chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini summarizing what we
used to use search engines for, or machine-learning-based feeds like TikTok
bombarding us with video content, a new layer of automation is forming between
us and the internet.
And Medium’s new CEO, Tony Stubblebine, who was actually running a Medium
partner publication up until he took over the CEO role from Williams in 2022,
believes he’s figured out how to compete: by not leaning into AI at all. And,
more importantly, by taking things a lot more slowly than Medium has in the
past.
“We turned ourselves around and we’re knocking on the door of profitability,”
he tells me with a slightly weary optimism. “We’re not, like, rich. . . . We
used to be rich; we could do whatever we wanted.”
Under Stubblebine’s direction, Medium, a site known for its many pivots, is
finally being strategic about what it wants and where it’s headed. Last year,
it launched a Mastodon server for premium users, and in March it demonetized
AI-generated content on its platform. It is solidly on the side of team human
and is finally starting to see that pay off."
Via
Garbage Day: In the belly of the MrBeast
https://www.garbageday.email/p/belly-mrbeast
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
