3 changes at Medium. One is ugh

Happy Friday,

I used to live next door to a woman that became a really good friend. We’d go to antique sales and exclaim over depression glass and sit for hours over coffee.

She had a weird habit.

When she got something new, she’d never mention it. She’d wait to see if you noticed. Hey, is that a new coffee table? That way if you didn’t like it, you didn’t have to say anything. lol.

Medium is like that. They don’t tell us about changes. They wait for us to notice. Maybe it’s the same reason? Less complaints that way?

I’ve noticed some changes lately.

1) Publication newsletters don’t appear on the author’s profile anymore.
When I started History of Women, I did a weekly newsletter. But every time I sent one, they appeared on the publication home page and my author profile. Sometimes if work is busy, I only write a couple of times a week, so the newsletters were taking over my author page. So I stopped. Now I can start again. Yay. Good change.

2) We can import subscribers now.
A while ago, Medium started allowing readers to sign up to get a writer’s posts by email. Because honestly, the feed seems to be drunk half the time. So, for example, if someone loves my writing and doesn’t want to miss a post, they can sign up to get them by email. The signup is right under every posts.

Well, now writers can import emails to their list. I can see good potential for this in specific use cases. Makes me think about starting a second profile for my hobby site and importing my email list. Goodbye Constant Contact. But I can see where it may be abused, too. If you have your email address in your profile, don’t be surprised if you start getting emails you swear you didn’t sign up to. lol. People being people.

3) Medium bought a Canva clone
The company is called “Projector” — it’s basically Canva. According to TechCrunch, “Projector users can create graphics for social posts, such as podcast artworks, a logo for a Facebook event, an Instagram story, etc.” As a designer, I wish I could say I’m excited. But honestly, what I feel is UGH. I feel like it’s going to get more GeoCities in there. If you aren’t old enough to remember GeoCities, search it on Google Images.

…

Now if they could only fix all the 500 errors that keep happening. It’s frustrating to try read there when you have to hit refresh several times before a story loads.

What do you think of the changes? Any predictions? lol.

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New posts, did you see?

• 3 Words That Weaken Your Writing.

• The Truth About The $125,000 Writing Challenge

• 5 Words That Make You Sound Like An Animal

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Did you know if you click the heart or leave a comment, Substack gives you stars for being responsive? You can’t see them, but I can. They make me smile. :)

Thanks for reading.

xo,
Linda