A few years after leaving Facebook over a feud with Mark Zuckerberg, the Instagram co-founders are ready to get back to work with a new product. About artifacta mobile application that intends to establish itself as a news manager taking advantage of automatic learning to display content related to users’ tastes or habits. A sort of Google Reader on steroids and with a view of TikTok.
Platformer published an interesting first look at the platform created by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom. The latter, in fact, was the one who provided the main details of the project, which has already opened its waiting list for those interested in trying out the application, which will be available for both iOS and Android.
Artifact aims to position itself as a new way of consuming articles or news with a strong social component. Initially, those who access the application will only have access to a feed “curated content”, coming from both well-known media and from blogs dedicated to more specific topics. But the intent is to add features that expand the reach of the platform. Among them, following other users to see the links they share, or a direct message section for personal communication with other people.
But the component that wants to make Artifact unique is the use of artificial intelligence to suggest new items. According to Systrom, the app will take advantage of machine learning to understand what types of news or publications are most interesting to users. Thus, over time, it will continue to show similar topics in the news manager, individually personalized using only algorithms.
In essence, the founders of Instagram want Artifact to be to text-based content consumption what TikTok is to viral videos.
Artifact, personalized news manager with algorithms
Kevin Systrom explained Platformer that it was the influence of TikTok that prompted them to strategize around Artifact. A paradigm shift based on algorithms that It’s time to break the follower system imposed by Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.and it seemed invincible.
“I saw this change and thought, oh, this is the future of social media. These graphs are not connected; these are charts that are learned and not explicitly created. And what was the funniest thing for me was that as I looked around, I wondered: why isn’t this happening everywhere on social media? Why is Twitter still mostly about following? Why is Facebook doing this too? he explained.
It remains to be seen if the Artifact proposal will generate real interest from the public. And if he survives hype released by ChatGPT, which made artificial intelligence and machine learning on everyone’s lips.
But apart from the latter, the co-founders of Instagram have to overcome a few more problems in their new project. The first, try to revive the news management sector, which for years seems frozen in time. Second, create a viable business model that, if dependent on ads or unlocking paid features, is not overly aggressive to the user.
Those wishing to join the Artifact Closed Beta can do so via this link. They only need to share their phone number, which will invite them to download the app.
Source: Hiper Textual
