Analysis of Medium
I found the work It Took Years, but Finally The Next Big Thing Can Change Humankind on Medium, a site which has different sub-sites based on interests, such as “beloved,’ ‘predict’ (where this article was found), insider, and many more. Posts on this site may be long or short, and below the title and the author’s name, there is an estimated read time for each article.
In order to publish on Medium, one must make a Medium account, which is free. From there, they can begin writing and publish their work as a single author, a collaborative effort, or as a brand. Authors can add a domain name to their page to make it more accessible and easy to find. Authors may edit their work at any time before or after publishing it, which enables them to keep their work updated, accurate, and representative of their views. Authors can interact with readers via newsletters and conversations via the ‘comment/response’ feature. Readers may ‘like’ or bookmark any piece on the site.
Author recognition is a prominent feature on Medium. The author’s name, along with a headshot of the author, is located directly below the title of the article. A site viewer can click the author’s headshot or name and be directed to the author’s page on the website, where all of their posts are located. In addition, next to the author’s name on their piece and on their page, there is the option to ‘follow’ the author or to ‘subscribe’ to the author to be notified each time that they publish on the website. At the top of the author’s webpage, there is a link to an ‘about’ page for the author. On this page one can read what the author has written to share about themselves. In addition, one can view how many other authors follow them (followers) and how many other authors they follow (following). The specific authors can be viewed in a list format by clicking ‘followers’ or ‘following’ on the author’s about page.
There are no ads on Medium, which I think enhances the reader experience, as the content that reader has selected to read is not interrupted. The site itself makes money via membership. Anyone can become a member of the site for $5 a month or $50 a year. Members can read unlimited content on the site, while non-member site viewers are limited to reading 3 member-only articles per month. Member-only articles are articles that are published by authors participating in the partnership program, which is a method by which authors can get paid on Medium. However, the partnership program is not a requirement for authors to participate in, as they have the option to keep their publications free and open to the public as well. In addition to the partnership program being optional for authors, once they elect to participate in it, they can decide if they want to post each unique publication via the partnership program or not. The partnership program has eligibility criteria (publish a story, gain 100+ followers, and stay active; site membership is not a requirement to join the program) and offers two ways for authors to earn money from their publications: 1) membership reading time (earn based on how much time members spend reading your work) and 2) referred memberships (earn half of a new member’s membership fee when you refer them to become a member). Authors are paid monthly.
Analysis of WordPress
I published my first piece of writing on my OpenLab WordPress site. The amount of design freedom that one has when creating a WordPress site relies heavily on the template that they choose to use. Each template has its own restrictions as far as placement of items on a page and within a post, as well as design in terms of colors, fonts, etcetera. These restrictions can be changed by a site administrator to give more or less freedom in terms of design options.
Interactions between authors and site readers are possible on WordPress. Both authors and readers can interact on WordPress via the comment function. I have not tried to make comments on a WordPress site before, nor has anyone made any comments on my site. I do not foresee this happening in the context of my site for this class, however, it would be an effective mechanism of communication amongst blog readers if I was to make my website public. Additional authors can be invited by the owner of the site to be an author so that they can make edits to the site and add posts. The visibility of a WordPress site is influenced by whether the site is public or private, which the site owner can change at any time. Private websites can be viewed only by people who are members of the site. My personal website is private, so its content shouldn’t be discoverable to those who are not a member of the page. However, if I were to make my site public, I could use WordPress search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, which are techniques to help to make websites more discoverable, to gain more traffic to my site. I do not know much about the processes involved in search engine optimization; however, I know that it helps to increase traffic to a site. I found this website that explains how WordPress uses SEO to make sites more discoverable. A lot of it involves settings that the site author can manipulate for the whole site or for each post.
