@coachtony@me.dm
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

coachtony

@coachtony@me.dm

CEO @ Medium. Early Twitter user, like really, really early. Some people call me Coach Tony. Partner is Sarah. Dog is Eloise.

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coachtony, to random
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Wild ride to get here.

https://blog.medium.com/thank-you-for-one-million-members-d0b39d1be8b3

coachtony, to random
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Got my keynote from Medium's PubCrawl up:
https://blog.medium.com/my-keynote-talk-for-medium-pub-crawl-8eb8a305b4a5

coachtony,
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

@brianstorms You should think paywall! That is the secret sauce.

ProfessorTom, to random
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https://medium.com/@ProfessorTom/four-4-things-to-do-to-improve-medium-3e9467026a56

coachtony,
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@ProfessorTom I also spell phonetically. We should have an official suggestions feature rather than that passive aggressive highlighting of grammar/spelling mistakes.

docuguy, to ai
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@coachtony Will Medium allow our writing to be crawled by AI bots? The news about WordPress and Tumbler is bad, and the news about DocuSign is probably worse. Will our copyrighted material posted to Medium be used/abused in the same way? Will you, like WordPress, provide an option to stop our posts from being crawled?

coachtony,
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@docuguy Allow? No. Be able to stop? Maybe.

https://blog.medium.com/default-no-to-ai-training-on-your-stories-abb5b4589c8#:~:text=The%20default%20answer%20is%20now,t%20already%20talking%2C%20contact%20us.

joannaholman, to random
@joannaholman@aus.social avatar

AI created entertainment content feels like the tech version of meal replacement shakes. Sure both are technically going to achieve something, providing you with some vitamins and protein from the shakes, distraction and entertainment from the AI content. Both might have some small legitimate uses in the context of a well rounded individual life and society. But made a major part of our lives they are both soulless, highly artificial impersonations of the creativity, care and culture making that’s part of what makes us human and which makes living in community with other humans worthwhile.

coachtony,
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@joannaholman bingo!

coachtony, to random
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There's an internal stat that I saw the other day which I'm mulling. 61% of what Medium pays goes from a subscriber to someone they directly follow.

Is that healthy? There are a lot of tradeoffs to consider inside that number.

blaine, to random
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I'm not much for the discourse lately, but I just have to join @Daojoan in being outraged about this deepfake thing. https://mastodon.social/@Daojoan/111892626802385631

It's utter garbage and needs to be eradicated with extreme prejudice. Solnit's piece in the LRB yesterday was on point, and this is just so much more that. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n03/rebecca-solnit/in-the-shadow-of-silicon-valley

It's enough to make me move to the woods (and disconnect the internet!)

coachtony,
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@blaine thank you!!!

coachtony, to random
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

I am finding that running a "medium" sized business that makes something people want is a lot easier than what I was doing before by running a small business that makes things that don't have an established market. And so I'm leaning toward accepting the startup wisdom that market beats product & team, and that yes, since all business is hard, you may as well work on the biggest thing you can think of.

coachtony, to nyc
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+1 for both the Spike Lee and the Zine exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum. I know all tourists have to go to the met, but now that I live here the two museum experiences that consistently deliver are the Brooklyn Museum and the Guggenheim.

ben, to random
@ben@werd.social avatar

I was asked about data portability - the ability to import and export data and interoperate between social networks - seventeen years ago. I don't think the conversation has really moved on much since. Here's what I said back then: https://www.zdnet.com/article/do-ordinary-users-care-about-data-portability-and-if-not-should-they-four-social-networks-respond/

coachtony,
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@ben It's kind of amazing that you could port your subscriber's stripe subscriptions from Substack to Converkit and other options. That's a type of meaningful data portability that didn't exist 17 years ago.

coachtony, to random
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

Trying something, which is to publish a really great newsletter that gives the Medium version of current topics. I think the "Medium version" is key to a deep understanding of the world, but also that explaining why is better shown than told. Sign up and let me know what you think?
https://medium.com/blog/newsletters/medium-daily-edition

coachtony, to random
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

I put the Skill/Challenge matrix from Flow research in my beginning of the year plan and am now noticing it everywhere. The gist of the idea is that there is an optimal amount of challenge that is surrounded by bad states: on one side by frustration and on the other side by boredom.

coachtony,
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In research on Flow, the optimal level is set by the combination of the challenge of the work and your skill level. Easy things are challenging for beginners and boring for experts. Clear, even if that's fairly obvious.
(Tangent: for years I assumed Flow was about productivity, but it's actually research on happiness).

coachtony,
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Last year, we had a bunch of projects with hard deadlines in the first two weeks of August. I'm pretty sure that tipped people into frustration. Hard to fault adopting those deadlines given that that's the work that created our inflection. But still... big costs to it.

This year, I'm hopeful that we don't have any externally driven deadlines and can just stay in the sweet spot of satisfactorily challenging.

coachtony,
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

Sort of related to this... our board has done a great job of accepting merely "a ton of progress every quarter" rather than harping on anything it can see that we are doing poorly. That makes for a healthy board dynamic because we can focus on whatever set of problems are most holding us back w/o feeling like we have to defend anything and everything. I bet most boards aren't this healthy.

coachtony,
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

And I think that points to the way the Skill/Challenge matrix changes if the challenge is externally defined. If the external challenge surpasses your skill level it'll create shame on top of frustration. I think everyone who has been a founder or been close to a founder has seen the amount of spin that often goes into a board meeting.

coachtony,
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@soaproot Oh for sure, immediate feedback does a ton.

J12t, to random
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Has done any Fediverse integration so far other than standing up their own Mastodon instance? And, I think, integrated their user database somehow?

(I might be terribly underinformed.)

coachtony,
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@J12t just that.

wearetjb, to random

@coachtony I’m trying to fathom what the community here is on the me.dm instance. Is there one? I took a punt and redirected my previous profile on the mastodon.art instance to my new profile here but it’s kinda dead. I don’t have a sense of who the moderators are. What the guidelines are. Or the what the community spirit is. Am I missing something?

coachtony,
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@wearetjb Still growing any sense of community. Mostly an onramp for now. Most likely to become a writer community plus whatever I am.

coachtony, to random
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Does anyone want to work from an office on Thur in SF? I'm thinking about doing an all day open coworking at the Medium office. 799 Market St.

Plenty of desks, offices, monitors, phone booths.

coachtony,
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@funcrunch @matkam I wish. There are close to 1000 seats in this building and only 60 of them are used in any given day.

lesleydewar, to random
@lesleydewar@me.dm avatar

@coachtony
@buster Benson

There is a simple solution to fix the AI bot problem

  1. Only reading time should contribute to earnings (like the old MPP). The only fair metric, that cannot be faked! If you are read, you are paid. Simple.

  2. Abolish the Boost program bonus.

  3. Hence, boost and engagement only amounts to extra distribution, not earnings. Thus, AI bots and engagement hustler writers will be discouraged from trying to game the system, since they won't have any financial incentive

coachtony,
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@lesleydewar @matthewclapham @buster actually tons of work going on related to this, some of it has been successful and some just about to launch.

coachtony,
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

@lesleydewar @matthewclapham @buster if you can read and clap then you are in the app. It even rhymes. It counts views and reads.

coachtony,
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

@matthewclapham @lesleydewar @buster What does it even mean to be tweaked? We changed the code? Or the underlying signals the algo uses changed, i.e. what people are writing?

justinpheap, to random

Just applied yesterday for the Brand Design role with Medium, @coachtony, and the crew. It's quite literally a dream job and team. Posting this so I can look back in a year and toast myself on really going big 🍻

Also, I don't know anyone on the team. So, if you read this and want to help connect me with anyone, that would be swell, ha!

coachtony,
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

@justinpheap yes. Filled and we are thrilled.

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