Artifact
The personalized news reader built by Instagram’s co-founders
Straight to the point - it’s a great experience.
Heard about this app via a TechCrunch article and their unique selling point was it’s from “Instagram’s co-founders”. And so, my excitement went up to try it out, otherwise, I’d have passed it just like any news app popping up day to day.
I already have Google News and I wasn’t looking for any other app at the moment, but due to the excitement, I googled Artifact and clicked on www.artifact.news
Oh yes, it was available for Android, that gives me the first good vibe. As you know most technology founders only release apps for the Apple ecosystem during the initial stages. I really don’t like this approach.
An account is required to access the app. A mobile number is enough. But giving our name and photo will give us more reputation on this platform (photo is not mandatory). That’s a nice approach to avoid spamming and hate speech - wait it will give more sense soon.
So after setting up the account, I had to choose interesting topics - also a nice touch to not get lost in this time of a million articles.
Streak & levels
Anyway, then it got more interesting. There is a streak status, to come back again. Well, it worked well in my case. I don't want to lose the streak now, but I’m not pressured to get into the app. I’m still in control as long as they provide a nice news-reading experience. Also, the more articles you read the more our account performs in leveling up. With 250 reads we will become one of the top readers (reading 250 articles takes time).
Insights
Artifact is learning our interest as we read. And it will give us an insight into what we like to read in categories. Haven't seen this type of approach in any news app.
Also included the publisher’s insight too. Which publishers we read more.
Comments & reputation
All publishing platforms by default include a comment section below their article. But it's mostly spam and sometimes hates speech or propaganda narrative place.
But Artifact played a different game here. They included a comment section for every article on this platform (different from the publisher comment section), and if your comments get upvoted your reputation score will increase by 3 points and if your comment gets downvoted, you will lose a few points from your earnings. So people will be mindful before sharing anything... Aaah nice!
Also, our reputation score will be present along with our profile picture and name, which gives us more confidence to engage with other people. At least we will get an idea of how the other person is behaving on this platform. It’s a collective approach so I don't think some people can lobby anyone without anyone noticing - but there is a chance, not heard any news about it so far.
It is becoming a community I think.
Read later, comments, reading history
We can save, and dislike any articles. And we can also view our reading and commenting history - good for travel back. Always had problems with Google News.
Sharing
We can share news links from this app to another app. The URL has an artifact identifier, so if anyone opens this link we will get a notification - nice!
Bio & joined status
We can include a short bio in our profile. While commenting people can see our profile details and when we joined by tapping on our profile. It’s a good approach that most people always like to be seen as early adopters, right?
Allow contacts
This is the only feature I disliked. I don't want a news app working like this. I don't want people to know what I’m reading or what I’m interested in. I haven't given permission for this so I have no idea how is this working.
I think if you are reading this you should try out this app. It’s not addictive. But a great experience. You can see all the ads on any article because it’s more like a browser without being identified as a browser.
You can search for news too, which brings back great results.