Yahoo Is Buying Artifact, the AI News App From the Instagram Co-Founders

Yahoo is acquiring Artifact, the AI news app from Instagram's co-founders that failed to make it big on its own. The Verge reports: The two sides declined to share the cost of the acquisition, but both made clear Yahoo is acquiring Artifact's tech rather than its team. Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, Artifact's co-founders, will be "special advisors" for Yahoo but won't be joining the company. Artifact's remaining five employees have either gotten other jobs or are planning to take some time off. The acquisition comes a bit more than a year after Artifact's launch and about three months after Systrom and Krieger announced its death. [...]

Artifact, the app, will go away once the acquisition is complete. But Artifact's underlying tech for categorizing, curating, and personalizing content will soon start to show up on Yahoo News -- and eventually on other Yahoo platforms, too. "You'll see that stuff flowing into our products in the coming months," says Downs Mulder. It sounds like there's also a good chance that Yahoo's apps might get a bit of Artifact's speed and polish over time, too. Both Systrom and Downs Mulder say the integration will take time, that you can't just drop an Artifact algorithm into Yahoo News and call it a day. But they see a possibility to get everybody into the future a little faster. Yahoo can develop a personalized content ecosystem, the "TikTok for text" that was so alluring to Artifact users. And Artifact can power a news service of the future.

Yahoo still exists...?

[ffkom]

And can even buy another company? Apparently, I forgot about that company too soon, when its diminishing relevance made it disappear from the headlines. Maybe I should also have a look what Compuserve does these days...

Re:

[GotNoRice]

Yahoo is just an empty shell of it's former self that is now owned by Verizon. So not sure why the headline isn't simply "Verizon is buying Artifact".

Re:

[TWX]

Probably because while Verizon owns Yahoo, it's not been wholly integrated into Verizon as simply another unit?

Yahoo News was a halfway decent competitor to Google News as far as aggregators go, but I now expect it to take a sharp quality turn down into wharrgarbl.

Re:

[quonset]

but I now expect it to take a sharp quality turn down into wharrgarbl.

Is that you, Sasha Grey?

Re:Yahoo still exists...?

[dcooper_db9]

No. Verizon sold 90% what was left of Yahoo and AOL to an investment fund. Apollo Global Management seems to be buying up a bunch of other companies and folding them into Yahoo but it's not clear to me what their end game is. They must be doing something right. They bought the two companies for $5B and had $8B in revenue in 2022.

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/... [axios.com]

Re:

[noshellswill]

The "news" produced by AI might be old enough to fit into a GEOCITIES page. My old websites certainly did. But, the really troubling aspect comes in the phrase "personalized content ecosystem," Will AI Create news from-whole-cloth that is favorable to individual readers ? I imagine an objective reality where one-news-fits-all ... because THAT"S what actually happened. Or will YAHOO insets be a series of opinion pieces again tailored to each user profile. What could go wrong ?

Who did they outbid?

[DulcetTone]

AskJeeves? Altavista?

Re:

[ffkom]

I guess US Robotics and Research In Motion, as both wanted to integrate them on their thriving PalmPilot and Blackberry platforms.

It was

[future assassin]

AstaLavista.box.sk... hides

Re:

[jfdavis668]

Compuserve

Yahoo! is an artifact

[iridium213]

That's it. That's the post

Sweet

[DrMrLordX]

If they want another failed Artifact, there's always Valve's.

https://store.steampowered.com... [steampowered.com]

Ya-who?

[ET3D]

I mean, people already said that, but it's worth another attempt at a title. :)