All You Need to Know about Hacker Noon's Transition Off Medium's Software

A Big Thank You to “Your Friends @ Medium” for the good times, but it’s time for us to move on. We wish them the best of luck in growing their paywalled publication - it’s an interesting experiment. As a parting gift, our past library will be duplicated - moving stories from hackernoon.com to medium.com/hackernoon - so that past Hacker Noon stories, stats and associations can remain available for the Medium community.

Why are you removing Medium's software from HackerNoon.com?

Short answer: We are no longer a viable business under the Medium’s paywall model, and ultimately, to make the next step as a media company we needed to own our software.Long, detailed answer: this podcast episode with CEO David Smooke. You can also read the transcript here. 

Why is Hacker Noon a better alternative to Medium? 

First off, it's not an either or. Writers should own their content and distribute it many places. If you want to use a paywall to monetize your story, medium.com and coil.com are great options. If you want to remove barriers to reading (like paywalls, pop up ads, etc.), Hacker Noon is a great place to publish. In addition to editorial review and quality distribution, we also offer contributing writers a customizable, prominently placed profile Call To Action (a nice new Hacker Noon 2.0 feature) that can be used to drive traffic to your preferred place on the internet, such as newsletter subscribers, job ads, social media campaigns, a company/organization you believe in, or anything else. You can view the examples here & here or here.

What will happen to my old Hacker Noon stories ? 

They will remain available at their current location: HackerNoon.com/Story-Title with our new back end software, and be moved from HackerNoon.com/Story-Title to Medium.com/HackerNoon/Story-title so that they retain the Medium links, claps, stats, profile association, etc.. Any story can be removed from Medium.com (how to) or HackerNoon.com ([email protected] or via your Hacker Noon dashboard) by the contributing writer.

What will happen to my Hacker Noon story URLs? 

They will continue to work! Unless you opt out of our Terms of Service, your Hacker Noon stories’ URLs will direct to the same URL they have for their entire time they lived on HackerNoon.com/Story-Title, as we don’t want to break any link around the internet. These stories will be connected to a new author profile that you can claim. 

How can I claim my old stories in 2.0?   

First, create a new account with us with the same email we previously contacted with you. Then, enter your Medium handle in your author profile. If your email matches with the one in our database, nothing else is required from your end. If it doesn’t, we will email you and require an additional verification step. For any assistance in this process, please message us: [email protected].

Will I have to register/create an account on the new platform?

Anyone can create a free account by visiting hackernoon.com → Sign up or Log in. Readers do not have to create Hacker Noon accounts :-) But if they do, they get access to some dope functionality. Writers do have to create accounts in order to start writing and get published.

Is there a way to merge my new Hacker Noon account with my old Hacker Noon account on Medium?

Yes, if your email matches and you enter your Medium handle correctly, you will see all your old stories under “archive” and new stories under “stories”.  If your email doesn’t match the one we have in our database, you will need to provide us with some verification. 

Why don’t my old stories show up?

Sorry about that! There could be a number of reasons: a mismatch between your current Medium handle & the one we have in our system, a story/account that was temporarily suspended by Medium, or that you have opted out of our Terms of Service! In these cases, please email [email protected] and we will be able to help you out.