{"id":652871,"date":"2013-04-17T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T13:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/?p=227746"},"modified":"2013-04-17T09:00:09","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T13:00:09","slug":"evan-williams-medium-acquires-long-form-journalism-site-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/652871","title":{"rendered":"Evan Williams\u2019 Medium acquires long-form journalism site Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matter, the Kickstarter-backed, science and technology journalism startup cofounded by former GigaOM European correspondent Bobbie Johnson, has only been up and running for five months<\/a> — but it’s already found a new home. Medium, the publishing platform founded by Twitter cofounder Evan Williams, has acquired Matter for an undisclosed sum, the companies plan to announce Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Matter raised over $140,000 through Kickstarter<\/a>, and Williams was one of its 2,566 backers. Matter, which publishes one story of at least 5,000 words every month and sells them for $0.99 apiece, will remain a standalone company following the acquisition. Johnson and his cofounder, Jim Giles, will work as part of Medium’s editorial team, which also includes former literary agent Kate Lee and former Wired.com editor-in-chief Evan Hansen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a blog post scheduled to be released Wednesday, Johnson and his Matter cofounder Jim Giles explained what will and won’t change:<\/p>\n

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“If you already know what we do, don\u2019t expect big changes yet. Our service is an ongoing experiment, but we have no immediate plans to alter the team, the places we publish (our website and the Kindle store), or how much we charge for each article. More importantly, we have no plans \u2014 at any time \u2014 to stop crafting hard-hitting narratives about big ideas. One of the things that made it easy to join Medium was the knowledge that the company believes in great storytelling as much as we do, and is prepared to support what we do.<\/p>\n

But we will be rolling out some changes in the coming months. We\u2019ve already started using Medium to expand on the ideas we cover \u2014 see, for example, Amputees & Wannabes, the recent series of commentaries around Do No Harm, our story about people who desire to amputate a healthy limb. We\u2019ll also be introducing some exciting changes at the Matter website \u2014 changes that will make the site better for readers, and improve our mechanism for supporting long-form writing.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Medium, which Williams and Biz Stone launched in 2012<\/a>, is a collaborative publishing platform that aims to let users write, annotate, read and recommend content in a clutter-free interface. The platform isn’t open to everyone yet; for now, a select group of authors are contributing. Matter is Medium’s first acquisition.<\/p>\n

Williams spoke about the importance of long-form content<\/a>\u00a0at GigaOM’s Roadmap conference last year. Watch the video here:<\/p>\n

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\"Ooyala<\/a>
Watch this video for free<\/a> on GigaOM<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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