Collaborative publishing website Medium, which aims to reinvent the blog, secures first external investmentMedium, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams's online publishing venture, has no shortage of ambition – to reinvent the blog as a digital storytelling format and match the impact of the microblogging service, no less.Williams, who launched Medium in August 2012 with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, has said their aim is "re-imagining publishing in an attempt to make an evolutionary leap" by building a new platform from scratch that would put an emphasis on ideas, stories and collaboration. To achieve this, however, the company will have to get over several hurdles, not least addressing the confusion over Medium's perceived strategy and business model, summed up by Reuters media commentator Jack Shafer, who describes it – while not lacking potential – as up to now being "a mystery wrapped up in a hashtag concealed by a catchy URL".This uncertainty has clearly not put off investors: Medium, which employs 50 full-time staff, announced last week that it had secured its first external investment, a $25m funding round led by Greylock Partners, with participation from Google Ventures and individual investors. Initial funding for the platform came from Williams's investment vehicle The Obvious Corporation.Perhaps this enthusiasm shouldn't be a surprise. As well as co-founding Twitter, Williams launched blog publishing service Blogger in 1999 and Medium is, ostensibly, similar – with... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Tumblr was nearly as busy as Twitter during MTV's Video Music Awards on Sunday when it came to the sheer number of content contributors, per Union Metrics, a company that offers analytics for both platforms. The San Francisco tech firm says 1.1 million Tumblr users posted content with... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2013-08-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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BookVibe allows users to search their tweets and extract the books that are being discussed by the people they follow on Twitter. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-07-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Upset by the 'not guilty' verdict in George Zimmerman's murder trial, one Twitter user started the online campaign that ended Martin Literary Agency's representation of Juror B37, who announced plans to write a book about the trial. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-07-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Rebecca Solnit offers a series of stories about life, health and connection, with a central thread relating to her preventative breast cancer surgery as well as her mother's Alzheimer's.Rebecca Solnit's latest book, "The Faraway Nearby" (Viking: 260 pp., $25.95), began with a delivery of 100... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-06-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Recent Twitter hacks done this spring by a group called the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) on the Associated Press and The Onion have brought attention to the vulnerability of a media organization’s social media account. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2013-06-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Surveying the ebook discussions at BookExpo America, it's clear that despite their popularity, ebooks still lack their own category of breakthrough storytelling experiences. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Kobo has announced a rise in e-reader sales of 145% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2013,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-05-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Twitter is being used as a "commissioning channel", Random House digital publisher Dan... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-03-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pan Macmillan has acquired three books by previously self-published author, and founder and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-02-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Just 12 hours after (already denied) rumors circulated that Barnes & Noble may ditch its Nook business, the company has had to make an announcement concerning its retail division. Thanks to SEC regulations, the company has had to 'fess up that majority shareholder and "founder*" Leonard... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It's rare in the West for graphic novels to win mainstream accolades and readership, but in Asia, it is the norm. In the US, isn't it time for that to change? Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-02-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Biz Stone's and Ev Williams's fledgling online publishing platform takes a few more social steps toward maturity. Medium, from the same minds that brought us Twitter, is already a new kind of online publishing platform...and now it's trying out a novel commenting system for published pieces:... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-02-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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At the beginning of a standing-room-only Frankfurt Book Fair discussion, Richard Mollet, CEO of the U.K. Publishers Association, said he imagined there was a day 100 or more years ago at a book fair when, after yet another panel on how electricity was going to revolutionize the business, an... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Eli Horowitz does not think of himself as someone who “fetishizes the book.” But he’s also seen what books become, in digital form, and has not always been impressed. A former managing editor and publisher at McSweeney’s, Horowitz describes much of what he has seen in the digital revolution in... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-09-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Twitter cofounders Biz Stone and Evan Williams today offered a preview of Medium, their new publishing platform. Medium is at heart a blogging service, although right now it's only open to a select few authors. The posts are organized into "collections" that use different layouts depending on... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-08-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After posting significant gains in 2011, the 16 publishers highlighted in PW’s annual Twitter snapshot all continued growing in 2012, showing that the book activity on the social media platform is still increasing substantially. All told, the total number of Twitter followers across all 16... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-06-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sceptre has acquired two titles which look to give more insight into two of the world's... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-06-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Chicago Tribune is mulling a plan to charge online readers premiums for different kinds of content, a structure similar to the fee it charges for the print literary magazine it introduced this year. The city's largest newspaper is charting ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-05-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Avengers may have racked up more than $200 million in box office receipts during its weekend opening, but the comic books on which the movie is based may tell us more about the future of storytelling. Continue reading at Knowledge@Wharton
[ Knowledge@Wharton | 2012-05-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have a new project up their sleeves under their parent company, AVOS. Within the last 24 hours, the duo launched a landing page for their latest project, Zeen. AVOS is responsible for acquiring Delicious ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-04-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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