Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back.
The co-founders of Instagram, who left Facebook in 2018 amid disagreements with their parent company, have formed a new venture to explore ideas for next-generation social apps. Artifact is their first product, a personalized news feed that uses machine learning to learn about your interests and will soon allow you to discuss those articles with friends.
Artifact is best described as a text-based TikTok, though it could also be described as Google Reader reborn as a mobile app or even a surprise attack on Twitter. The app launches into a feed of popular articles curated from a list of publishers ranging from major news organizations like The New York Times to small-scale blogs about niche topics. Tap on articles that pique your interest, and Artifact will serve you similar posts and stories in the future, similar to how watching videos on TikTok's For You page fine-tunes its algorithm over time.
Krieger and Systrom are clearly betting on artificial intelligence-driven algorithmic predictions to help their app gain traction with the general public. Sign-ups for the Artifact app went live last week on artifact.news, and it is now available for download on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
Currently, the app only displays a centrally ranked feed, but it will soon display another feed containing articles posted by other users you have chosen to follow. The app will also allow users to privately discuss the posts with friends via a direct message inbox. The stable version currently lacks these features.
On Android, we tried out the Artifact app. During the app's setup, you are asked to choose 10 or more topics of interest, which are then organized into different tabs. It also prompts you to select your news publisher subscriptions in order to prioritize news from those outlets in your feed. The top headlines are displayed in a separate tab.
The 'For You' section is initially empty, and reading at least 25 articles in a two-week period is required for the app to better personalize your feed. Users can also bookmark articles for later viewing. Given the lack of social features in the stable version of Artifact, the app appears to be a full-fledged news-reading app rather than a social platform.
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