Evan Williams’ Medium snaps up Kickstarter-funded journalism startup Matter, 6 months after launch

It sounds almost too poetic, but Evan Williams/Biz Stone-founded media startup Medium – a collaborative publishing platform that lets users write and share content – has snapped up Kickstarter-funded Matter, another publishing startup still in its infancy.

We first covered long-form journalism project Matter last November. In a nutshell, it’s a publishing outlet focused on producing “incredible, deep journalism about science, technology and the future for digital formats.”

It actually rolled out round about the same time that Evan Williams was opening his new publishing platform to Twitter employees (initially) back in November, and it’s interesting to see this acquisition come to fruition so soon after both companies emerged from the starting blocks. Though it’s perhaps not surprising, given Williams was one of the original Matter Kickstarter backers, with the platform going on to crowdfund $140,000 prior to launch.

Medium and Matter…a match made in heaven?

Medium formally made the acquisition announcement earlier today, with Matter co-founders Bobbie Johnson, former European correspondent for GigaOm, and Jim Giles penning the post.

“After we launched, Ev (Williams) told us how his team wants Medium to be the best place on the internet to read and create high-quality content,” the post says. “Earlier this year, he suggested that Matter become part of that project. It didn’t take us long to realise how much sense that made for us, our readers and for the people we work with. We’re delighted to announce today that the move is complete: Matter is now part of Medium.”

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While the acquisition is complete, Johnson and Giles say that their service is “an ongoing experiment” and have no imminent plans to alter things – that includes the team, the platforms they publish to (Web and Kindle) or the cost of the articles ($0.99 per month, all-in).

They do go on to say that some changes are brewing, however, noting that they’re already tapping Medium’s platform to develop ideas, and they’re planning to roll out some “exciting changes at the Matter website,” though specifics weren’t given.

It’s an interesting acquisition for sure, and we can’t wait to see what becomes of Matter – and Medium – for that matter.

However, it does raise one question concerning the original Kickstarter-backers who coughed up to get the gig of the ground and likely won’t have any say if Medium decides to change things further down the line. All ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, but still.