Artifact, the personalized news aggregator built by Instagram’s co-founders, is taking its app in a new direction with the launch of the Links feature. This new feature allows users to share any link from the web and view a personalized feed of links based on their interests.
A New Direction for Artifact
The Links feature is a significant departure from Artifact’s initial focus on tracking, summarizing, and commenting on news. With this new feature, users can actively participate in news discovery by sharing links and interacting with others who have shared similar content.
How the Links Feature Works
To get started, users simply share a URL, which is then presented in a visual feed within a new Links tab in the app. A familiarly named "For You" feed will show you other links based on your interests. Users can also optionally write a caption or add photos to share their thoughts or "hot takes," turning them into creators of sorts who could build a following on Artifact.
Creative Tools and AI-Powered Assistance
The new Links feature offers creative tools that help users quickly upload, crop, and reorder their images. To assist with caption writing, creators can turn to Artifact’s AI, which was originally used to summarize long news stories. Additionally, users can share quotes when reading articles on Artifact by highlighting text and choosing "Share to Links" from the new pop-up menu.
Early Adopters Share a Wide Range of Content
Early adopters have shared new products, videos, headline recaps, app reviews, recipes, architecture slideshows, and much more via Links. This makes the app feel like a competitor not only to social apps like X but also to Flipboard, whose social magazines are curated by its users, or even link pinboarding sites like Pinterest.
Social Networking Capabilities
The new Links feature goes beyond Artifact’s recent launches that added commenting on articles and tools for writers to claim their profiles and track their readership. Now, users can search for and follow anyone who’s created a social profile on the app. New posts from people you follow will appear under a new "Following" section.
Potential Challenges and Solutions
However, using Artifact becomes less of a passive experience for news reading with the Links feature, which could also mean some users may try to feed the app with content from smaller sites, blogs, and other less legitimate news sources where information isn’t as thoroughly fact-checked as mainstream publications. The company says it will address this potential problem with a two-layered approach:
- AI-powered moderation: Artifact will leverage AI that utilizes third-party moderation services to look for bad content, as defined in its community guidelines.
- Manual review: A manual review process will be crowdsourced and actively monitored by the team.
Co-Founder Kevin Systrom on the Links Feature
"The same AI that powers article discovery can be used for anything on the web — though it’s less tractable to crawl it all, and likely better to let users choose the best stuff," explains Artifact co-founder Kevin Systrom. "Artifact is about feeding your curiosity, and this new feature allows users to explore topics they’re interested in."
Conclusion
The Links feature marks a significant shift for Artifact, allowing users to actively participate in news discovery by sharing links and interacting with others who have shared similar content. With its creative tools and AI-powered assistance, the app is poised to become an even more essential resource for users looking to stay informed about topics that matter most to them.
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