Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger form a venture to explore next-gen social apps; the first is Artifact, a TikTok-like app for news articles

Platformer 2023-02-01 Casey Newton

Context & Ripple Effects

Artifact began as Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger’s attempt to apply social-feed mechanics to article discovery. It later opened as a public personalized reader on Android and iOS, expanding the experiment beyond an initial launch audience.

The product’s roadmap moved from consumption toward participation: Artifact added comments and proposed profile reputation scores, while its founders also emphasized tools for matching writers with readers. Yahoo’s planned acquisition of Artifact’s technology shows that the underlying recommendation approach retained value beyond the standalone app.

First-order effects

Artifact enters the news-reader market with a short-form, feed-style interface for articles, putting Systrom and Krieger back in competition for users’ attention after Instagram.
The founders’ new venture gains a first product through which to test social discovery and personalization for news rather than general-purpose social posts.

Second-order effects

Publishers and writers have an additional distribution surface whose later writer features and public profiles tie audience growth to how well individual creators are surfaced.
News apps built around direct source selection face pressure from an interface designed to make article discovery feel more like a recommendation feed.

Third-order effects

Artifact’s later planned technology acquisition by Yahoo points to a market in which recommendation and personalization infrastructure can outlive a consumer news app and be absorbed by larger media platforms.
As news products add social signals such as comments, profiles, and reputation, the governance of recommendations becomes as consequential as the editorial source list.

The trend: News discovery is being recast as a personalized social feed, with creator features and recommendation technology becoming core product assets.

Discussion

@kevin Kevin Systrom on x
It's been a minute, but @mikeyk and I are back at it with Artifact - a personalized news feed using the latest ai tech. Visit https://artifact.news/ to sign up and join the community.
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back with a new company. I talked to Systrom about their first app: Artifact, a kind of TikTok for text https://www.platformer.news/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@andrewfrompatio Andrew Martin on x
@CaseyNewton Amazing you'd write this whole article and not even mention Toutiao, which was Bytedance's first app and exactly the same thing that Artifact is now.
@rmstein Robby Stein on x
Excited to share what I've been working on with @kevin, @mikeyk and an awesome team since leaving IG. Artifact is a personalized news feed driven by the latest in AI. We're letting people in as we can scale up and you can join the waitlist at https://artifact.news/! https://twitt…
@abdur Abdur Chowdhury on x
I've been using https://artifact.news/ for months and love the news recommendations. Sign up for the waitlist and check them out yourself. 💪🏽😎
@nikitabier Nikita Bier on x
@kevin @mikeyk Godspeed, may the consumer app gods bless you again
@nikitabier Nikita Bier on x
Consumer apps are the purest meritocracy. You can be the creator of the biggest app of the last decade—but at the end of the day, you're fighting in the trenches like everyone else. Glad to see @kevin back in the saddle and trying to catch lightning in a bottle once again. https:…
@mcwm Mike Murphy on x
so it's the Facebook trending team after the fired the humans, but as an app ? https://twitter.com/...
@seyitaylor @seyitaylor on x
isn't this Toutiao? didn't Bytedance do this in like 2016 or something? https://twitter.com/...
@rollingstone @rollingstone on x
“One of the issues with technology recently has been a lot of these companies' unwillingness to make subjective judgments in the name of quality and progress for humanity,” said Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom https://www.rollingstone.com/ ...
@zoeschiffer @zoeschiffer on x
Not typically a new technology booster but I haven't been this excited about an app in a long time 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ https://twitter.com/...
@scottnover Scott Nover on x
There's always caveats, but I like seeing the words “text-based” for a change. https://twitter.com/...
@malcolmmoore @malcolmmoore on x
News apps are the future! https://twitter.com/...
@rich_harris Rich Harris on x
just the founders of instagram using sveltekit probably nothing https://twitter.com/...
@rebexxxxa Rebecca Jennings on x
I have always wanted a “tiktok for text,” but I imagined it including like, little poems and short fiction and classic magazine profiles from the 70s in addition to just news articles?? like this is just an RSS feed lol https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@richontech Rich DeMuro on x
Instagram's co-founders have a new app called Artifact, sort of a TikTok for news articles; learns what you like and serves up a personalized feed. Google News does this, but guessing this will be better in some way? https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@erinkwoo Erin Woo on x
will be interesting to see how this goes, esp given that text-but-algorithmic feels very much like what twitter is trying to do right now (and the reviews have not been kind) https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@joshconstine Josh Constine on x
The Instagram founders are back with Artifact, an AI curated news app. TikTok used AI to rank each piece of content individually instead of focusing on who you follow. Making the article the atomic unit, not the publisher, could be a leap forward https://artifact.news/ https://tw…
@bryce Bryce Roberts on x
Watch this space... https://twitter.com/...
@j_k9 Jonathan Keane on x
Sounds interesting but hard to see how it elbows its way to a massive user base. https://twitter.com/...
@melissamdaniels Melissa M. Daniels on x
“.... like a social network from the late 2000s, Artifact has its sights set firmly on text.” 👀 https://twitter.com/...
@drewcoffman @drewcoffman on x
this is erasure https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@amasad @amasad on x
Hope they do “feed prompting” https://twitter.com/...
@sharpshoot @sharpshoot on x
Prismatic 2.0 — should be very cool. https://twitter.com/...
@levie Aaron Levie on x
@kevin @mikeyk 👏 🫡
@anoushasakoui @anoushasakoui on x
this looks really interesting and how some news users had started to use instagram stories - reminds me of Deuxmoi or Houseinhabit https://twitter.com/...
@chrismessina @chrismessina on x
I wouldn't necessarily bet against @mikeyk or @kevin, but personalized news is like the Afghanistan of digital apps. Speaking of, has anyone checked on @Flipboard recently? 👀 https://www.producthunt.com/ ...
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
Looks interesting https://t.co/ctySIPfedo
@rafat @rafat on x
Uh oh, another rich white male in tech coming to rescue future of news. Or save publishers. What could go wrong? Let's move away from founder worship here a bit, history of 1) tech founders coming into news 2) generalized news apps teaches us a lot. Or nothing, in this case. http…
@jessicalessin Jessica Lessin on x
Kevin and Mike are smart but the record of tech companies reinventing news through new consumer interfaces is well... poor. Remember everything Google and Facebook tried!! The best way to innovate in news is to create better journalism. https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@seyitaylor @seyitaylor on x
Kevin Systrom is building some kind of Bytedance-type thing https://artifact.news/
@obrien Chris O'Brien on x
Oh, goody! Another third-party app finding ways to monetize content from newsrooms. This one is Artifact by the Instagram co-founders. https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@jjvincent James Vincent on x
instagram's founders have a new text-focused app that will use AI to recommend content. the idea is that in 2023 AI can better parse themes/subjects in news, posts, etc, and predict users' interests — curious how this will compare to tiktok's reccs https://www.theverge.com/...
@kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on x
News focused TikTok is Twitter https://twitter.com/...
@larakate Lara Cohen on x
This is gonna be huge. https://twitter.com/...
@martinsfp @martinsfp on x
Oooh, new thing from Instagram's founders! Artifact is “a personalized news feed that uses machine learning to understand your interests and will soon let you discuss those articles with friends.” https://t.co/KlsVbDp0nf
@lmatsakis Louise Matsakis on x
lmao the founders of Instagram are trying to make Toutiao but for the US https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@howardlindzon Aspen Lindzon on x
signed up ... Kevin and team building a tik tok for text .... https://open.substack.com/...

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