Instagram co-founder launches text-based app

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back in the app game In a new and innovative startup since leaving ‘grams Artifact is a new social media platform that aims to provide a feed of articles and facts and create dialogue between users to discuss things. Are interested.

The app focuses on news content from a personalized and curated list of publishers from top news outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. smaller niche blog. When a user clicks on a particular story, your feed will automatically show similar articles, posts, and stories that may be of interest to you.

Today, the app is open to a wider audience, but it seems that those who want to participate in the app still have to do so. elusive wait list Which afterwards text you Includes a link to download and access the app. Upon download, users will initially only have access to a central, ranked feed, but his Artifact beta testing of two additional features expected to be integral to the app is underway.

according to The Barge, one feature displays a feed of articles posted by people the user has chosen to follow, including comments on the posts. The second feature is the Direct Her message inbox, where users can privately discuss posts with their friends.

Artifact did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.

The new app isn’t the first foray into tech since Systrom and Krieger left Instagram. of The pair created the website Rt.live To track its spread in 2020 covid-19Systrom told The Verge that he and Krieger had been discussing the Artifact idea for years and were unsure whether a machine learning system could improve content recommendations to users.

But he told the outlet His experience with Instagram changed his perspective and made him believe that an accurate and customized feed is possible. “Over the years, I have seen things improve really fast every time we use machine learning to improve the consumer experience,” he said..

Artifact features can most commonly be compared tick tock, in which case the app takes an algorithmic approach to the content. In this case, you’re showing users text instead of video, but you’re focusing on what they like rather than just showing content based on who you follow.

This feature is made possible by Transformers, invented by Google in 2017. Transformers has created technology that allows systems to understand language based on less input. It started with an algorithm that showed what a user’s friends found interesting (known as the Facebook model) and then a feed based on who the user chose to follow (now known as the Twitter model). ).

Finally, social media has advanced enough that predictions can be made regardless of who a user is following or who they are friends with. You can see this on his TikTok, the most downloaded app in the world.

Artifact takes TikTok’s algorithmic approach, but now applies it to text-only apps. “I saw the change and thought, ‘Oh, this is the future of social,'” Systrom told his The Verge. “These disconnected graphs. Why isn’t there?” Why is Twitter still primarily follow-based? Why Facebook? “

Apps include publishers on both the left and right ends of the political spectrumbut Systrom said only outlets that adhere to quality editorial standards will be allowed to remain on the app. Remove outlets and posts that promote misinformation and make independent judgments about what can remain on the platform