More from Author Rachel Maga here: https://globelivemedia.com/author/rachel-maga/
Medium has announced that it will acquire Paris-based startup Glose for a private amount. Glose has built iOS, Android and web apps that allow you to buy, download and read books on your device.
Glose is a reading app that lets you build bookshelves, share notes with your followers, and start conversations in the margins, turning reading into a multiplayer experience. Certainly, there are social platforms where you can talk about books like Goodreads. But what sets Glose apart is that social features are essentially linked to reading features, which aren’t two separate platforms. There are also gamification features that help keep you motivated when reading difficult books, such as continuous rewards.
In many respects, Glose’s one-tap highlighting and commenting features are reminiscent of Medium features. You can highlight text on other reading apps on your phone or tablet, but you can’t do anything about it.
Recently, Glose launched another service called “Glose Education”. As the name implies, this is a service for colleges and high schools. Teachers can distribute assignments and students can read books as a group.
More than 1 million users have used Glose, and 25 universities, including Stanford University and Columbia University, have contracts with Glose Education.
But Glose is more than just a software business. The company also operates a comprehensive bookstore. We are affiliated with 20,000 publishers, so you can buy e-books directly from the app.
And if you’re studying Virginia Woolf this semester, Glose offers hundreds of thousands of public domain books for free. Glose also supports audiobooks.
This is probably the most interesting part of Medium’s plans to extend beyond articles and blogs. Glose will continue to exist for now, but Medium is also planning to integrate e-books and audiobooks into the service.
This is a smart move, as many prolific bloggers are also book authors. Currently, they write blog posts on Medium and link to third-party sites if readers want to buy a writer’s book. Having the ability to host everything the author writes is a better experience for both content creators and readers.
“We are impressed not only with Glose’s reading products and technology, but also with our experience working with book authors and publishers,” Medium CEO Ev Williams said in a statement. Says. “Books are a way to explore ideas, a way to deepen them. Most of the world’s ideas are stored in books and magazines, but they can hardly be searched or shared. Together with Glose, Medium’s large network We want to improve the experience of our readers and writers. We want to work with the Glose team to partner with publishers to help authors reach more readers. “
The Glose team will remain in Paris, and Medium will open its first office outside the United States. Glose will continue to partner with authors, publishers, schools and institutions.
Category: Software
Tags: Medium, Glose, acquisition
Image credit: Glose
[To original text](Translation: Nakazato)
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