Artifact takes on X and Threads with new Posts feature

Artifact, a platform built by Instagram’s co-founders, is launching the ability for users to make posts. Up until now, the platform has been an aggregator for news and links, but is now becoming more of a social network by allowing users to create posts. Artifact co-founder and CTO Mike Krieger announced the launch of the new feature at today’s Code Conference.

With this new feature, users will be able to post their own content directly on Artifact without needing to include a link. The company wrote in a blog post that the new feature builds on the recent launch of Links, which lets anyone share a URL they believe is notable enough to resonate with other readers. This also feeds into the personalization algorithms, helping people discover new content they may not have otherwise.

“Posts builds on the recent launch of Links, and allows anyone to share thoughts, reviews, ideas or anything they find useful into the feed of content from the community,” the company wrote in a blog post. “Posts, along with Links, expand what’s possible to discover, share, and create on Artifact.

Users can get started with the new feature by tapping the “+” icon on the top right corner of the Links tab. From there, you can add your own images, title and text. Artifact notes that you can post whatever you’d like, including restaurant reviews, how-to guides, family recipes, app breakdowns, design inspo and more.

Artifact explains that just like links, your posts will appear in the visual feed of content shared by the community. Posts will be distributed to your followers and be shown to anyone on Artifact who has read on similar topics. All posts have a unique URL that can be shared with anyone, which will make it easier to share them on different platforms.

The feature is now available on the latest versions of the Android and iOS apps.

The launch shows that Artifact is expanding beyond simply being a news aggregator service and that the company is interested in competing with the likes of X (formerly Twitter) and Meta’s Threads. Although Artifact had been slowing inching into social networking territory with recent launches that added commenting on articles and tools for writers to claim their profiles and track their readership, the new Posts feature brings Artifact in direct competition with social networks.

Today’s announcement comes a week after Artifact co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom spoke onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. The executive said that Artifact is still exploring product-market fit and that he believes that machine learning, LLM (large language models) and mobile are key to the app’s potential success, but that the startup is still trying to figure out how to achieve scale.

Systrom also spoke about how he doesn’t believe in AI doomerism, even as he’s developing a new app that’s embracing novel AI technologies. The executive noted that although it’s good that people are questioning the potential impacts of AI, he feels it’s more likely that people will become “super-powered” because of these technologies.