Is Simily Growing Up?

Or did Vocal just deal the platform a death blow?

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

I’ve been writing at Simily for 18 weeks now. Overall, I’ve enjoyed the experience. The platform seems to have a focus on creative writing and there is a decent community of dedicated writers there.

Simily at 17

Simily is slowly approaching 4000 members. By slowly, I mean Simily is adding about 100 new members a week.

The founders are conducting a series of Zoom calls to get feedback on how to improve.

Recently, they announced a “sharing” initiative — an opportunity to have “top” stories recommended when people visit the site. This could be a good first step toward promoting the work of writers on the platform.

Simily is Sharing!

While I remain cautiously optimistic about the long-term outlook for Simily, one recent development could be reason for concern.

Another writing platform, Vocal, announced it is finally adding comments.

Will You Comment on Vocal?

This could be an absolute game changer. Vocal has been around longer than Simily and has a fairly large group of writers. The site has not done much to promote writers or their writing, but they do pay for reads both internal and external.

The one missing element: Any real sense of community. There were no comments. No way to connect or engage.

Now, that’s changed. Writers, then, can choose to stick with Simily — a somewhat glitchy platform with comments and a slowly growing community — or they can join up or stay active on Vocal. Of course, you could do…