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Medium announced that it will be laying off some of its staff, more exactly one-third of it.
Medium announced that it will be laying off some of its staff, more exactly one-third of it, as the company will be changing its direction.
Medium Corporation is the legal owner of Medium. This latter is an online publishing platform. It was launched back in August 2012. The platform was developed by Evan Williams.
Williams, who is also the company CEO, is also known for another of his project. He is one of the co-founders of Twitter, the popular microblogging platform.
Medium was designed so as to allow the publishing of longer documents and writings. It has set out to have a larger than 140-character maximum number. The platform hosts a varied collection of both amateur and professional publications.
It also has its own specialized publications. As such, it has, for example, online music and technology ones.
On Wednesday, the aforementioned Williams released a statement. This was published on the official Medium post. According to it, the website will be going through some major changes.
One of the first changes will target its employee numbers. The company will be laying off a part of its staff members.
An estimated one-third of its employees will be affected by the decision. More exactly, Medium will be renouncing to 50 members of its staff team.
The post also went to mention the most affected such areas. Layoffs will mostly affect business functions. For example, the sales and support areas. Most of the product and engineering teams will reportedly not be affected.
The downsizing will also target the company offices. As such, two of its bases will be closed down. Its Washington D.C. and New York offices, to be more exact. Some staff members will reportedly keep working remotely from the said locations.
Medium will also reportedly be changing its business model. The shift will come in the hopes of accomplishing its initial mission.
According to the release, the company feels that it is “falling short”. This will lead to a change in the platform’s business model. A new variant should help it finds its way back.
Williams outlined Medium’s initial goal. The website was reportedly supposed to be a new Internet media model.
As it is, the startup will be searching for new support methods. These should come help sustain Internet creators and writers.
The need for a change may have also been based on a former company decision. Back in October 2016, Medium introduced some new features. More exactly, it started sponsoring posts on its website.
It also started rolling out a series of native ad campaigns. Some have argued that these last features are not exactly the definition of following a new path.
In the blog post, Williams himself outlined a similar point. He stated that the Internet media has become quite ad-driven. This may not necessarily serve people, according to him.
As it is, Medium will be searching for a new path. This latter is as yet unknown. According to Williams, it might also take some time before it can become known.
He is reported to have stated it as being too soon as to say what this new road will look like. As such, the company will be shifting its attention and resources.
It will reportedly try to build a “transformational product”. This will specifically target people curious to find out more and learn about the world every day
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