Medium
- Individual effort and rewards. Readers and writers pay to join. Readers may sign up to receive payment based on level of readership. No advertising. Based in San Francisco. A diverse workforce. International participation. According to Medium, they have 120 million readers.For readers and writers interested in online publication structure that is fluid and transfers money to writers on the basis of readership, Medium is worth consideration. Membership, offering access as both readers and writers, runs about $50 a year (as of June 2020). The Medium's Partner Program delivers payments to writers based on the amount of time readers spend reading a piece. The Partner Program is independent of Membership, and requires more steps to sign up. The Medium website includes guidance to aspiring writers. The payment method gives writers monthly feedback through their pocketbooks.
How Medium describes itself: "The internet should reward quality thinking, not clickbait. That’s why we’ve created a better home for writers, journalists and experts. It’s simple to use, free from ads, and connects you to curious, avid readers, so you can focus on what matters: putting your best work out there."
About Medium:
https://medium.com/about
https://medium.com/creators
The perspective of an enthusiastic participant:
https://medium.com/swlh/heres-how-i-made-1-000-in-my-first-4-months-on-medium-26d05d0abe0a
An outside perspective:
Freelance, 2/1/2018. https://contently.net/2018/02/01/resources/tools/social-media/medium-pros-cons/
Traditional Journalism
Thought Tools Timpani strongly encourages readers to subscribe to (and write for) the best local, national, and international newspapers and magazines, to support careers in journalism and--through journalism--a viable democratic society.However, as we all know, many of the connections between writers and readers today transcend traditional structure, as the speed and ease of communications continue to rise. There are opportunities available for writers seeking alternative avenues for online publication.
Wikipedia
- Group effort. Writers volunteer their time and expertise. Free for readers and writers. No advertising.Wikipedia is a prominent, and remarkable, example of alternative avenues for online publication. You can add a word, sentence, paragraph, or article, or edit existing text. Instructions are available on the Wikipedia website itself, and in numerous, widely available books. If you have an area of expertise, and would like to engage with a large readership through group collaboration, this is an amazing way to do it. Andrew Lih's The Wikipedia Revolution; How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia, 2009, offers an excellent history for the curious wikiphile.
