Story-focused publication like Hackernoon: Use Ghost blog platform or Medium with custom domain?
I was inspired by the recent podcast with David Smooke/Hackernoon and so I'm currently planning to create my own publication which will have articles written by me and allow guest posts/user submitted content.
Since the content will be submitted BY ME, with attribution, the platform won't require writers to create an account on the platform I end up using. However, I'm curious if you think one platform makes more sense than another?
I'm leaning towards a custom domain powered by Ghost blog platform because I have a feeling in the future I'll want to include custom http content, sign-ups for newsletter, possible newsletter subscription (payments). I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that on Medium, even if it's hosted on a custom domain I own. Do you know?
I think Medium no longer offers custom domains as an option https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003053487-Custom-Domain-FAQ
But if you go to Hackernoon.com right now you'll see it's clearly got a Medium platform running, with integration to Medium user accounts for author linking, sign up/login, etc.
They're probably keeping it for previous customers (at least for the time being) but not allowing new sign ups.
Well that's interesting... hmm...
I replied to the above comment but you'll see Hackernoon.com is running off a medium platform, or at least appears to be..
I've also been wondering about this lately (for a company blog, not for a publication, which might have a different answer), so I'd love to hear from someone who knows more about this!
One thing I will say is that the distribution you get from Medium might help jumpstart a publication. I wrote a few half-decent Medium posts a few years ago, and they still get some reads every week (I imagine as a result of Medium recommending them to people?).