Follow Writers on Artifact

What’s new

• As of today, you can follow writers on Artifact. If you follow a writer, we will prioritize their articles in your feed.
• Writers can claim their profiles and control their display on the platform. By claiming, writers get special insights and data about their content.
• Personalization still drives Artifact, but we believe in giving users increasing amounts of control, and this is the first step.

The full story

Behind every story, there is a writer who spent countless hours researching, drafting and editing the stories we read on Artifact. We rely on these writers to report and analyze on the most important topics of our day. Yet, in the paradigm of RSS feeds, publisher sites, and news aggregators, it’s not easy to find and follow your favorite writers consistently. Whether it’s your favorite food writer, who consistently produces the best recipes, or a technology reporter that consistently uncovers the latest scoop — you’re left hoping to see their content, and wondering if you missed some the biggest stories of the day.

To solve this, we’re adding the ability to follow individual writers. By following a writer, you will see their stories prioritized in feed and get a notification when they publish (though you can toggle this off if you’d like). Now, if you have favorite personalities that cover the topics you care about most, you can follow them as easily as any other social platform.

In addition, writers can claim their writer profiles on Artifact. This allows for writers to customize their appearance on the platform. It also adds a verified checkmark to their profiles for ̶a̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶l̶o̶w̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶$̶8̶/̶m̶o̶ free. This verified checkmark lets users know they’re seeing the real writer in comments and search. If you’re a writer and you want to claim your profile, search a recent story you published, tap the profile icon and select “…” and “Claim Writer” from the menu. Verified writers get special insights and notifications. For instance, we will notify writers when their story is linked in other stories or when other writers follow them.

As a user, you’ll now see a profile icon in the top right of every article. Tap this, and it’ll bring up an author profile. Clicking “follow” will ensure that you never miss a story. You will always be able to manage who you follow from your profile.

While we believe Artifact will be driven by machine learning and personalization, giving users the ability to follow writers is an important first step in giving more control. We hope you’ll find this useful for keeping up on the daily news and content you care most about.