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The Medium Mirage
Medium seems to suffer from another problem: AI-generated content and fake account for fake engagement to generate revenues. According to their recent article (Paywall might be enforced to read this), many accounts under the Partner Program were suspended recently to stop this fraud.
I’ve returned to Medium last fall (read my comments about the reading and writing experience over there) and found that content quality has gone down compared to what we used to read there. The revenue program is much less generous than it used to be. I published 18 stories since my return and earned less than a dollar! We don’t know how these revenues are calculated, but it is a bit insulting or at least discouraging. At this rate, I won’t recover the Partner Program subscription cost in the first year which makes my presence there questionable. This should have been a no-cost journey which it’s not. Still seven months to go…
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The first edition of 2025 of the Ephemeral Scrapbook newsletter is out. I’m curious if some of you look into these. Let me know.
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I have twice as many followers on Bluesky than on Mastodon. Don’t know how many followers on Micro.blog… because… Micro.blog. 🙃
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I love this panel that Ghost presents after hitting “Publish and share”. That was the last edition for 2024.
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Now I feel bad about this. 😔
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I still have three more articles to publish before the end of the year: one about Medium, the final edition of the Ephemeral Scrapbook, and a review of my creative year.
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On Header Images and Creative Liberty
Manuel Moreale link posting on the subject of header images on blog posts:
“I’ll go one step further Nelson, I have a growing hatred towards pointless images in blog posts in general, I don’t even care if they’re AI-generated or not. If they’re there as part of the content then by all means use them but if you’re just adding a stock image from unsplash to make the page “feel” more interesting then you’re just part of the broader problem that’s plaguing the web.”
Header images do add to the page load times, yes I do use AI-generated images from time to time, like in this post where I wanted to make a point, and I use many of my personal photos… like in this edition of the Ephemeral Scrapbook newsletter. Yes, I prefer header images on that specific blog because it is part of its visual theme. So then what? That’s MY corner of the web. I do what I find cool and creative and whatever.
I’m guessing he’s reading none of my blogs because of this, among other reasons?
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I am not the biggest fan of meta blog posts, also called blogging about blogging. I do think they’re sometimes useful but they’re also quite uninspiring for me to read. And that’s why I try to stay away from the topic for the most part.
I find this statement surprising coming from the author behind the popular “People & Blog” series. Maybe I’m missing something here.
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Photo Sharing, The Web and Museums
Here is a thought about recent tweaks to RSS importer on Micro.blog. For example, now it’s possible to import photos in the RSS feed published by Glass. With this, when I publish a photo on Glass, it gets posted on my blog too. The same photo on two platforms. As much as I like the POSSE principle for writing, it doesn’t fit well with my desire to share photos on special places, like a photo-dedicated service. Glass is such a special place, just like Pixelfed. What would be the point of having a single photo spread out on other platforms? I see places like Glass like museums. Pieces of art hanged on the wall of a museum are unique to this place. It makes the place unique. I’m still thinking about all this.
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Here’s the latest edition of the Ephemeral Scrapbook newsletter! I hope you enjoy! Email version coming out soon! For those asking: it is entirely built using Craft Docs.
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It’s been a while since the last edition of The Ephemeral Scrapbook edition. Here’s the latest one where I talk about Glass, Realmac Software Elements, Apple Intelligence, the iPad, Apple a many more digital tidbits. Coming up by email to subscribers later today. Hope you enjoy!
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Just finished the latest edition of The Ephemeral Scrapbook, edition 2024-43. Enjoy. Email version coming out soon to my dear subscribers!
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I’m happy to share the newest edition of my Ephemeral Scrapbook newsletter. Email version coming out much later today.
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This is the second edition of the Ephemeral Scrapbook, edition 2024-36. Email version coming out later today.
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The first edition of my third-generation newsletter “The Ephemeral Scrapbook”, edition 2024-35, is out! Email version coming out later today! Consider becoming a supporter on my Ko-fi page. 🙏🏻
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This is the final edition of the Creative Summary newsletter, which will be renamed “The Ephemeral Scrapbook Newsletter.” Over the past two weeks, the author has shared 20 posts, 12 photos, and one podcast episode, but no YouTube videos. The author feels conflicted about using Facebook and have rediscovered Medium, where they plan to publish more articles.
The newsletter also includes discoveries from MG Siegler, highlights from the iPhone Photography Awards, and insights on Apple’s upcoming event. The author is considering freelancing and will document the journey on Medium. He discusses app recommendations and express concerns over AI in photography and deepfakes.
Footnote: this summary was generated using ChatGPT as an experiment.
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This morning, I submitted an article to a Medium publication. The subject is about considering going freelance. It’s been a long time since I have done this. Back in 2020 when I was much more active on Medium, submitting articles to Medium publications was the only way to get noticed and hope to make a few dollars along the way.
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The latest edition of my weekly creative summary is out! This is a jam pack one. Email version coming out soon to subscribers! Pass editions available here.
