Medium has launched TK, a note-taking and journaling app and its first product beyond blogging. It pairs daily journal-style notes and longer writing with private group spaces called Libraries.
Those Libraries flip Medium’s usual model on its head. A post on Medium is written for anyone who finds it. A Library has no public face, and TK doesn’t count pageviews or reward authors for getting traffic. CEO Tony Stubblebine calls the idea “private blogging”, and he ties it to search. Stubblebine says that as Google took traffic away, it hurt both Medium and its writers, since Medium relies on Google for a large share of its traffic. His answer is to “take everything underground”.
This is a community that’s going to give you feedback and encouragement. It’s not about the drive to be noticed.
Tony Stubblebine, CEO, Medium
The app itself is barebones. The Verge likens it to an ultra-minimalist take on Evernote. You can point an AI model at your writing to search your notes or ask for feedback. The name doubles as a shortcut. Writers use “TK” as a placeholder in drafts, and typing those letters in the app summons the model to fill in some information.
Sharing works much like a Google Doc. You can send a piece by link or email, and collaborators can write, comment, and leave emoji reactions. Libraries can hold anything from a few people to a few hundred, for projects such as a book, a recipe collection, or poetry drafts.
It’s unclear who can get in. The Verge’s report says TK is available now to existing Medium members, with apps for the web, Android, and iOS, and Stubblebine says a native desktop app is coming. A later post on Medium by Bloom Stories says it’s waitlist-only, with invites going out gradually. So far, the coverage gives no separate TK price.
Stubblebine says it’s Medium’s first important launch since 2017, when the company stopped chasing ad money and became a subscription business. He also says features like these are coming to the broader Medium platform soon. The Verge suggests that if TK works, private and paywalled writing could become a crucial new way for Medium to make money.
