Why I Built an Alternative to Medium
And Why It Is So Successful
The medium paywall is notoriously frustrating for millions of readers.
It doesn't help that search engine results are bombarded with articles that most people can't even read!
I have solved this problem.
I have created an alternative to medium where I upload my articles so that everyone can read for free!
You will notice at the top of every medium article, I link to the corresponding article on my blog site.
In this article, I will explain the architecture behind my blog site.
I will not delve into implementation details, but rather provide an overview of my blog site, and why it is so successful.
Without further ado... Let's get straight to it!
1. Blog Page
Here is a link to my blog page.
This page is branded as "Info Library".
The goal for this platform is to bring free information to everyone, forever.
We also have different article categories, 5 at the time of writing, with many more to come as we grow.
1.1 Blog Card
The current layout for my blog is a 3-column grid of blog cards.
6 blog cards are rendered at a time using infinite pagination.
This means as you scroll down, 6 blog posts are fetched at a time until every post has been fetched.
Each blog card contains the following information to give a solid preview of each article:
- Title, Subtitle
- Category
- Relative Publish Date (e.g. 5d ago).
- Author
- Views
Each card is wrapped by a Next.js <Link> component, which will redirect the user to the corresponding article page when clicked.
2. Article Page
The architecture of this page is mainly inspired by medium, with the addition of some personal touches (e.g. Dark Mode Toggle).
I have designed this page to be simple and without distracting features.
I want readers to become immersed in the articles, I want to keep their undivided focus on the article.
Therefore, you will notice as you scroll down there are 0 features that will distract you from reading.
2.1 Blog Interactor
The purpose of the blog interactor is to promote user engagement and interaction.
The blog interactor is a gray bar which lets the reader interact with any article in the following 3 ways:
- Like
- Comment
- Share
The Like and Share is self-explanatory, but the comment section is far more complex and took me lots of time to perfect.
The comment section is equipped with the following functionality:
- Add Comment
- Like Comment
- Edit Comment
- Delete Comment
- Replies
- Sub-Replies
I combined features from the YouTube and Reddit comment sections to construct a robust comment section and promote user engagement.
3. Future Plans
While my blog is doing great, there are still many features I must add to optimize the overall user experience:
- Pinned Featured Articles: Make my most viewed article stand out at the top of Info Library.
- Search: This is a must, it will allow users to find their favourite articles on Info Library.
- Embeds Support: E.g. YouTube Video Embeds, X Post Embeds.
This list of features is not exhaustive, and be rest assured there are many more to come.
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