Medium 2.0 Is Coming…
And if you’re not careful, you may not survive it
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Have you noticed that Medium has been acting a little strangely over the past few days?
For me, the glitches have been manifesting themselves as notifications that appear 16+ hours late and occasional incorrect viewership data.
At first, I didn’t give the glitches a second thought. But as the glitches continue into their fifth day, conspiracy theories are continuing to develop.
The first reaction for some was to assume that the platform is crashing for good.
Over the past nine months I’ve been on the platform, I’ve experienced no fewer than five “crashy” occasions that were interpreted by many as the end of days.
The second reaction was to assume that someone had messed up the code and we were all living with the consequences. While we discussed this theory, Medium stated on Twitter and in emails;
“We are currently experiencing a backup in our data pipeline that process certain stats and counts. This is showing itself in various places of the product, including the stats page, post page response and claps, and notifications.”
The statement went on to say that they’re working on a fix.
While some people believed the statement, very few people in the Facebook world were convinced.
What’s Really Happening
Today our scepticism was rewarded with tiny details into what’s really going on.
Some folks on social media have revealed that Medium is indeed working on a new user experience that some selected readers have been asked to test before launch.
Presumably, they’re running the existing Medium interface and the new exclusive interface side by side.
We already know that Medium has added one new experience to the regular platform and that it was possibly the act of adding this experience that contributed to the problem.
