Medium’s Ev Williams: ‘It’s Going to Make Less and Less Sense to Publish on the Web’
Also: Some insight into the shifting moods of Twitter’s board, and Medium’s plans for making money.
Amelia Krales for Re/code
Ev Williams made it easy for people to say what they want online. But the man who created Blogger, then Twitter and now Medium says the Web is on its way out, at least as a place to publish your thoughts.
In an interview with Peter Kafka on the latest episode of “Re/code Decode,” Medium CEO Ev Williams said the future of media lies in platforms like Twitter, Facebook and, naturally, Medium.
“There’s going to be a convergence of distribution points for media,” Williams said. “And it’s going to make less and less sense to publish on the Web.”
So, what does that mean in real terms? To Williams it means that brands and people will continue to be valuable, but they will need to hop on a platform that can surround their work with other high-quality content and give it greater social reach.
Williams, who co-founded Twitter and still serves on its board, also discussed at length that company’s past and future. And he explained why the board initially signaled that Jack Dorsey could not become its permanent CEO while remaining as CEO of Square, but then changed its mind and let him have both jobs.
“We were getting lots of questions about whether this was just for show and Jack was going to be in no matter what,” he said. “We wish Jack were full time, and we made a compromise to put him in the role.”
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
