Oh, the irony. This is a shortform post. Medium’s official short format allows up to 150 words.

I’ve heavily used shortform content since early last year. It’s done greatly some days, not so much on others. I’m on the editorial team of The Shortform, a publication for 150-word pieces.

Now that Tony Stubblebine has taken over as CEO of Medium, it might be worth thinking about ditching shortform and introducing a word count minimum for stories, as Vocal does at 600 words.

Why?

Tony wants to double down on high-quality content to make Medium even more appealing to readers. This might mean doubling down on longer stories.

Google prefers longer pieces, it’s a major factor in SEO rankings. Typically, long stories perform better over time than shortform content.

Would Medium benefit from a minimum word count? Worth considering isn’t it?.