Medium — home of the tedious self-congratulatory thinkpiece — has introduced a new reaction button that lets you ‘clap’ (or ?) posts you enjoy.
What makes Medium’s clap feature special is that it isn’t a one-time thing. If you really like a post, you can applaud multiple times by mashing the clap button like an old person trying fruitlessly to use a touchscreen ATM.
Katie Zhu, who works for Medium in product and engineering, explained that the new feature was because recommends felt a bit too cheap. A recommend for a piss-taking, three minute post (like this one) is equally as valuable as a recommend on a more thoughtful, long-form article.
The Recommend — our version of a Like or upvote or fav — has been our explicit feedback signal since almost day one. Explicit feedback is the most valuable signal, both for authors and the Medium system. But a simple, binary vote has its limitations. It shows you how many people thought something was good, not how good was it?
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In short, claps will let you give authors more accurate feedback on a post, and only the author can see how many claps you offer. Medium also plans to use claps in discovery, ensuring that the most appreciated stories rise to the stop.
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