Instagram Founders Return for 2nd Rodeo

Instagram is back and better than before!

Huh?

Well, other than the decreasing organic reach, overflowing crypto bots, and the addition of reels, was it ever gone?

Really, the founders of Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are building another app- you heard that right.

Imagine…a world where you get the exact news article you want to read at the time you want it. No more rage bait when you’re looking for some calming news. Rifled up? Well, you’re just asking for rage bait.

Wait no more- Artifact’s got your back.

IG 2.0? Nah, they’re calling it Artifact, and it’s a machine-learning news recommendation platform.

Forget getting news from the Twitter trending section. Because Artifact is coming in hot.

Or is it?

You see, social apps are very hard to get right. Like, insanely hard. Which makes IG one in a million. However, being the founders of IG gives Kevin and Mike both a huge leg up and increased credibility.

Artifact has debuted in the app store, and as of this writing, is ranked #6 in the news category. Hey, not bad! Not Instagram-level (yet), but not bad.

See, in a recent interview, Kevin (one of the co-founders) stated that the app uses machine learning and AI to personalize and curate the newsfeed to an individual’s tastes and desires. Basically, one could call this the “TikTokification” of the newsfeed, as TikTok’s machine-learning algorithm suggests short-form videos based on your tastes and preferences.

A criticism of this shift is that social media is becoming more of an echo chamber. If the news is curated to your preferences and interests, it is less likely that you’d be exposed to articles that challenge that point of view meaningfully.

But, weirdly enough, that may lead to a happier society.

Let’s take this review of the app in the app store from a GenZ lad, for example:

“Saved me from Twitter

I’m young (22) and I grew up with Twitter. But the constate rage-bait and inescapable political content were having a serious effect on my mental health. Twitter also doesn’t care if you tell it not to show you political content- your gonna see it…”

Basically, this user was turned off by Twitter’s political leanings and found Artifcat to be a peaceful alternative.

Ok, since we’re an unbiased lot of people, let’s look at one of the negative reviews too.

This individual has given the app 2 stars:

“Ok idea, poor execution

First of all, I shouldn’t have to choose categories of things I’m interested in. It should figure that out itself. That part was annoying.

Second, this app would be far more interesting if it stripped out all of the ads from articles. Otherwise, this is just a worse version of Reddit.

Third, and most fundamentally, the creators of this app should seriously question whether this is a good idea in the first place. Is it good for everyone to have a filter bubble of news? Everyone has their own individualized view of what is important in the world? I don’t know.”

He or she brings up a really good point. Sure, someone can have the news curated to my individual tastes and interests- but what are the 2nd, or even 3rd order consequences of that?

Kevin emphasizes that social media should be less “social”, meaning that it should be less dependent on the social graph of friends and followers. And more on genuine curiosity and interests. I can get on board with that.

In fact, not to get on a soap box here, but if you look at the mental health statistics with social media:

-According to an MIT Sloan study, social media, such as Facebook, led to a 7% increase in depression among college students

-25% of teens using Instagram said it had negative mental health on them

The thing is, social media does allow people to connect to each other on a “social graph”- but more of GenZ is looking for an alternative each day.

Now, is Artifact the answer? Who knows.

But, the important thing is, people tech founders are once again beginning to innovate in the space that seemed unbreakable.

Other than BeReal, TikTok, and Gas very recently, very few social media apps have been able to break through the noise in the past decade. Sure, Clubhouse had its moment but faded pretty soon thereafter.

Which means…new founders got a really cool opportunity coming up, if they have the guts to build a social app. Guts and work ethic are hard to beat.

Here are a few tips when building social apps:

1. If it’s not working within the first 10 months, kill it and try a different idea- This is very contrary to the startup mindset of “never give up”, but according to legendary investor Elad Gil, with consumer social apps, you know within the first couple of months whether you’ve found lightning in a bottle.

2. Optimize everything for the response “huh, wow” from your end user- ideally within seconds-> this type of quick, novel response will keep people coming back to the product

3. Start small and take over one geography at a time-> The app Gas, for example, used a high-school by highschool growth strategy and quickly got to $7 million in revenue (not bad)

4. Or Start in a category niche and expand from there→ TikTok, for example, started with dance and lip-sync videos.

5. Try implementing in-app purchases- Gas did this, and as consumer apps are becoming more “flash in the pan” type hits, in-app purchases allow for quick monetization. If you’re not technical, consider using a no-code tool like Thunkable to build the product (it’s easier than you think).

6. Add AI into the mix- research shows that consumers are 15% more likely to trust an app or product that is powered by AI in some way, shape, or form. Marketing is simply a combination of psychology and arithmetic, so we can use that to our advantage.

7. Ditch the “meet your friends for cool events” app idea- most college students have this idea, and it’s rarely been done successfully because the barrier to getting to the “aha” moment is too high, and organizing a meetup can take hours- even days. One of the keys to a social app is getting the end user to the magic moment in 30 seconds or less.

Alright, lads, that’s been this edition of the ZenPreneur. Download Artifact if you’d like, and maybe go try creating the next huge social app.

Feel free to like and share this if you’ve enjoyed it.

Peace.