more platforms are released every week. In this article we will focus on the heavy weight champion of the blogging world – wordpress.com going against the new age alternative – medium.com I’m sure you must have heard of Medium by now. Either from a writer friend who wouldn’t shut up about it or a completely unknown person you follow on twitter. I’ve personally found Medium a great place to consume content that I normally wouldn’t be able to discover on my own, written by people I don’t know anything about. Medium is just as much about the community as it is about the platform. Medium is pretty though. In this age of dedicated mobile and news reading apps like Flipboard and Reeder 2 I rarely browse any website on my phone. Medium is the exception. It looks great on every device I own and works wonderfully. It’s the first platform where I don’t feel the need to request a dedicated app. And that’s high praise. WordPress on the other hand is the grand daddy of blogging world. And with time, it was starting to get clunky. But recent updates have made it lively to use with impressive features to boot. So, if you are looking to get started with penning down your thoughts online for people to see and want to go with a free blogging platform, we have an overview of the two services here. We shall compare the writing and publishing environment both these services offer, and discuss things to consider before you make your choice.
Publishing With Medium
If you love the process of writing and are a sucker for all things pretty, go with Medium. But of course, it’s more than that. It’s about the community, the platform, the algorithms and editors who curate the best content from the website and put it up on the front page, no matter who the writer was, a novice or a guru. Also, Medium is new and exciting. The comments system is contextual and comes up only when you need it. Medium has different user curated collections. This is another great way you discover new content. See any collection you like? Follow it and the updates will show up on your homescreen. Publishing on Medium is just as offbeat as the site itself. You won’t find the handy toolbar as we’ve all grown accustomed to. If you want to format some text, you’ll have to select it all and chose your options from the popup bubble. Just so you don’t get lost, Medium has built up a collection just for beginners. Head to this post to learn more about formatting and publishing your first story on Medium. If you are looking for a booming community of insightful readers, Medium is the way to go. But Medium comes with its own set of problems. For all its simplicity, you don’t get many options. Yes, any content on the site looks great but it also looks the same. There are no themes or customizations to make your content stand out except images and some basic formatting options. So if you are thinking of starting a blog for your company or are looking to tap into a specific niche, Medium might not be for you.
Publishing With WordPress
Mediums weaknesses translate into WordPress’s strength. While Medium is new and is still experimenting with features and layout, WordPress has a strong grip on the foundation. If stability is what you are looking for then WordPress is the way to go. Plus, there are countless other reasons why WordPress is a great platform for bloggers and listing them all here is nearly impossible. So here are just a two really good ones.
Flexibility: WordPress has countless themes and plugins available to enhance your website. Of course, the selection is no where near as wild as what’s available for the self hosted WordPress platform – wordpress.org, but it’s still quite sizable.Profiles and pages: With WordPress you get your own unique profile, you can add your own domain and your blog can support different pages as well. None of which is available on Medium.
Last Word
I hope this short article gave you an overview of the differentiating features of Medium and WordPress. Thanks to the wonderful world of free internet, both services can exist side by side peacefully. But only one of them may be right for you. If you want a focus on content, a readily available and growing community of readers and a beautiful blog with minimal set up, medium.com is the way to go. On the other hand, if you like to have a little more control over your content and are looking for more features, it does not get better than wordpress.com
Your Experience?
If you run your blog on either of these platforms, why not tell us how it has worked out for you so far. The comments section welcomes your thoughts with its arms wide open.
