Digital Bounds Logo

Facebook speeds up the news feeds with instant articles

Facebook launched instant articles that give popular outlets a rich and quick way to deliver articles to readers. Initial partners include The New York TimesNational GeographicBuzzFeedABC News, The Atlantic, The Guardian, BBC News, Spiegel Online and Bild. The articles are hosted on Facebook, and are interactive along with load times much faster then any publishers site.

Facebook said the articles will be engaging than a regular article. “Zoom in and explore high-resolution photos by tilting your phone,” the company said. “Watch auto-play videos come alive as you scroll through stories. Explore interactive maps, listen to audio captions, and even like and comment on individual parts of an article in-line.” The content will come each publisher who can sell ads onto the platform. They’ll keep 100% of that revenue if they make the sell, but Facebook will keep a portion if they sell ad space.

I haven’t experienced the new instant articles, but I feel like Facebook is picking the best of the best with this. If the company does open this up to everyone it could be a platform where more publishers post their content. It’s similar to how most sites post their video to YouTube and post them to their own site through their own video players. I don’t see a lot of publishers jumping on this ship for a few reasons. While Facebook does drive traffic, it won’t stop doing that anytime even if publishers are only posting links into users news feeds. The other reason is because the money involved and sharing of profits with Facebook could scare a large portion of already struggling publishers away.

Tell us what you think about instant articles on Facebook in the comments below!

Source :

Comments