Apps & Websites for News Consumption

[Macallik86]

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back with a personalized news feed called Artifact that that uses artificial intelligence to pattern users’ interests and the friends that most likely want to discuss them with you. The new app — whose name combines articles, facts and artificial intelligence — opened a public waiting list this week and is available on iOS and Android. The Verge calls it “TikTok for text,” adding that “you might also call it Google Reader reborn as a mobile app or maybe even a surprise attack on Twitter.”

Artifact’s home screen offers a feed of popular articles curated from participating publishers, including The New York Times as well as more modest niche blogs. Machine learning develops insight into topics of interest to a particular reader, serving similar posts in the future.

While virtually all of the top social apps have this algorithmic capability, their feeds are influenced, to greater or lesser extent, by commercial interests — what they’re trying to sell you, or influencers it behooves them to promote. Systrom says on The Verge that Artifact differs in that it will focus on “graphs that are learned rather than explicitly created.”

To do this, Artifact leverages a 2017 Goolgle AI breakthrough called the Transformer, which allows systems to understand natural language using fewer inputs than what was previously required. Transformer technology is credited with propelling machine learning forward very quickly (putting the “T” in ChatGPT).

It also created new opportunities for social networks, writes The Verge, explaining that early iterations “showed you stuff your friends thought was interesting — the Facebook model. Then they started showing you stuff based on the people that you chose to follow, whether you were friends or not — the Twitter model.

While early users will get only a centrally ranked content feed, two more features are expected to become hallmarks of the app: “a feed showing articles posted by users that you have chosen to follow, along with their commentary on those posts” and “a direct message inbox so you can discuss the posts you read privately with friends,” The Verge reports.

After eight years under Facebook’s ownership, Systrom and Krieger left Instagram in September 2018, writes CNET, noting that “since their departure, the duo also launched a website, in 2020, to track the spread of COVID-19.”

Instagram Creators Launch Artifact, Called a ‘TikTok for Text’ - ETCentric

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back with a personalized news feed called Artifact that that uses artificial intelligence to pattern users’ interests and the friends that most likely want to discuss them with you. The new app — whose name combines articles, facts and...

www.etcentric.org

 

[Hood Critic]

We have a confirmation bias problem and this sounds like another algorithm that will make that worse. I'd like to see, this algorithm in particular, curate and serve the users different perspectives and views on the topics they select to read about. I'd also like to drop the FB-like "here is what your friends have been reading" aspect of this.

Then there is the fact that social media has spent the last decade grooming and making its users comfortable with doing less reading or communicating in as few words as possible. An app centered on reading at length, seems to be a bold niche move.

 

[Macallik86]

I'd also like to drop the FB-like "here is what your friends have been reading" aspect of this.

This is on me actually... I chose the article w/ the most brevity to kick things off, but it is a poorly summarized version of the longer The Verge article. Similar to TikTok, recommendations are based off of machine learning, not your friend circle:

It also created some new possibilities for social networks. At first, social networks showed you stuff your friends thought was interesting — the Facebook model. Then they started showing you stuff based on the people that you chose to follow, whether you were friends or not — the Twitter model.

TikTok’s innovation was to show you stuff using only algorithmic predictions, regardless of who your friends are or who you followed. It soon became the most downloaded app in the world.

Artifact represents an effort to do the same thing but for text.

Here's another quote from the Verge article that points to the forward-thinking (relative to most social media anyways) owners:

Artifact will also remove individual posts that promote falsehoods, he says. And its machine-learning systems will be primarily optimized to measure how long you spend reading about various subjects — as opposed to, say, what generates the most clicks and comments — in an effort to reward more deeply engaging material.

Instagram’s co-founders are back with Artifact, a kind of TikTok for text

The duo is back just over four years after leaving Instagram.

www.theverge.com

Then there is the fact that social media has spent the last decade grooming and making its users comfortable with doing less reading or communicating in as few words as possible. An app centered on reading at length, seems to be a bold niche move.

I think that's what makes it appealing to a news junkie like me. It knows what I like and feeds it to me. I'd like to think that my reading habits are (mostly) more constructive than my passive video watching habits, and so an app w/ ML capabilities should lead to more targeted/enriching content in my life. A smart man's TikTok ideally.

 

[Macallik86]

Google News is becoming unbearable as they push their updated home page. I want to pivot completely to Artifact but the fact that it doesn't have a website is frustrating.

Here's a link to skip the line if anyone wants to check out the app. (I don't get credits or any bonus if you click )

 

[Geek Nasty]

I still don't get what Tiktok is for

 

[Macallik86]

Publicly launched today:

Instagram's co-founders' news app Artifact launches to the public

Artifact is dropping its waitlist and phone number requirements, introducing the app's first social feature and adding feedback controls.

techcrunch.com

Systrom explains the delay in launching publicly was not just about generating consumer interest in the Instagram founders’ next big thing, but also because the underlying technology requires a certain amount of data and a number of people using it to offer the best experience. As a few weeks have now passed, the company believes the app is ready for a larger audience.

Looks like they were using their beta users to do validation testing on their ML models

But yeah, interested to see how things change over the next few days/weeks. I started using redirector (shout out bnew) to stop myself from going to Google News unconsciously, so this is now my main source of news.

 

[bnew]

I still don't get what Tiktok is for

short videos that could consist of facts, tips, PSA's, people seeking advice, people showing off something unique or interesting.

like if I look up "gorilla tape" I can find people using it for all sorts of stuff i never thought it could apply to.

TikTok - Make Your Day

www.tiktok.com

TikTok - Make Your Day

TikTok - Make Your Day

www.tiktok.com

youtube will show you with videos on that topic that are 1-20 mins long vs a 1-2 minute videos on tiktok.

 

[Geek Nasty]

short videos that could consist of facts, tips, PSA's, people seeking advice, people showing off something unique or interesting.

like if I look up "gorilla tape" I can find people using it for all sorts of stuff i never thought it could apply to.

TikTok - Make Your Day

www.tiktok.com

TikTok - Make Your Day

TikTok - Make Your Day

www.tiktok.com

youtube will show you with videos on that topic that are 1-20 mins long vs a 1-2 minute videos on tiktok.

I hear you buy why can't you just put that content on Youtube or vimeo?

 

[bnew]

I hear you buy why can't you just put that content on Youtube or vimeo?

vimeo?!

tiktok algorithm is better at finding similar content and i'm just guessing but the upload editing tool might be better.

 

[bnew]

https://artifact.news/

 

[Macallik86]

The latest update added dark mode to article which really helps the late night scrolling.

They still don't have local news though outside of like the 3 largest cities in the country, so although they cover US Politics and International politics, the app does feel more geared towards reading about hobbies rather than devouring news to better understand the (immediate) world around you. I suppose it did force me to download my local news outlet's app

They track stats which gives you a bit of a gamification feel I suppose. Nothing too great. It is interesting seeing the 'read articles' by category tho

Spoiler: My results

 

[Macallik86]

Instagram creators' Artifact app is starting to look more like Reddit

They have added commenting to each article now. I feel like most news websites are moving away from comment sections but perhaps selection bias will create for more nuanced conversations

 

[Macallik86]

They are starting to lose me. Ads are everywhere and articles start w/ a floating 'comment' display

Thinking of pivoting to this:

Boring Report

Boring Report: News by AI - Information Without the Noise

www.boringreport.org

It's has the same layout as Google News (pre-update). The one downside is that it is AI generated articles attempting to neutrally summarize real articles. Some might like this, but I do want a bit of additional context in my articles and I feel like this bot likely butchers that aspect

 

[bnew]

They are starting to lose me. Ads are everywhere and articles start w/ a floating 'comment' display

Thinking of pivoting to this:

Boring Report

Boring Report: News by AI - Information Without the Noise

www.boringreport.org

It's has the same layout as Google News (pre-update). The one downside is that it is AI generated articles attempting to neutrally summarize real articles. Some might like this, but I do want a bit of additional context in my articles and I feel like this bot likely butchers that aspect

looks pretty good

I might use this to peruse summaries of stories I don't care to know the details of.

 

[Macallik86]

Here are two more alternatives that I find myself gravitating towards more:
News Minimalist.

News Minimalist — World news ranked by significance

News Minimalist is the AI curator that finds the 1% of stories actually worth reading. Experience only important news without junk, clickbait, or ads.

www.newsminimalist.com

Spoiler: Website screenshot

Chat GPT reads 1000 articles daily & ranks their level of importance from 1-10. The cream of the crop is shared via a daily digest. On slow news days, instead of pushing your weak stories, there won't be any new articles which is kinda dope in a time of 'breaking news' to pass the time.

You can manually adjust what classifies as important news. I think the default is a score of 6 or better. I think only one article since inception (the last few weeks) has scored greater than an 8. My fav functionality is that they have an RSS feed so it's a daily list of the top headlines for the day. I also am digging the clean, minimal UI and that they show you the score that ChatGPT gave each article b4 you read it.

Thud News

GitHub - aerotoad/Thud: Simple news reader that keeps the noise low.

Simple news reader that keeps the noise low. Contribute to aerotoad/Thud development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Spoiler: Features pic

I copped it from F-Droid, but there's also a mirror on Google Play Store. This is FOSS and clean AF. Very minimalist vibes.

The best way to describe it is a news aggregator that feels like an RSS aggregator. It takes some time to setup, and doesn't have pure RSS functionality just yet, but it basically allows you to create your own categories of interest, and curate it with your fav sources (including subreddits). I have created tabs on Local/Global news, financial markets, Tech & AI for example.