Digital publishing platform Medium has acquired Glose, a digital reading platform and e-book and audiobook retailer based in Paris. Glose incorporates social media elements and allows readers to create book lists, comment on books, share a variety of information from passages highlighted in books to their personal reading goals. According to the company, what differentiates Glose from similar reading apps is that the sharing elements are more tightly integrated with the reading experience itself, allowing readers to comment from within the book, rather than opening a separate page.
Glose was founded in 2014 and, according to a press release, reaches more than a million readers in 200 countries. The company recently launched Glose Education, aiming for students and teachers to purchase and read books as a group. The company said it has signed up 25 universities, including Stanford and Columbia in the United States.
In July 2020, HarperCollins named Glose as their e-book provider in North America and the U.K. for direct sales to consumers.
“We’re impressed not only by Glose’s reading products and technology, but also by their experience in partnering with book authors and publishers,” said Ev Williams, Medium CEO. “Books are a means of exploring an idea, a way to go deeper. The vast majority of the world’s ideas are stored in books and journals, yet are hardly searchable nor shareable. With Glose, we want to improve that experience within Medium’s large network of engaged readers and writers.”
Medium, a blogging and publishing platform founded in 2012, has iterated several times. Today, the company says it has more than 30,000 paid writers, contributing more than a million or more articles each month. The company has been rumored to in conversations to acquire other companies as well, notably Wattpad.
