Facebook has expanded its offerings for publishers, with the confirmation that its Instant Articles initiative will go ahead. The move will allow users to view articles from other websites without ever leaving the original site.
Facebook’s product manager Michael Reckhow explains: "People share a lot of articles on Facebook, particularly on our mobile app. To date, however, these stories take an average of eight seconds to load, by far the slowest single content type on Facebook. Instant Articles makes the reading experience as much as 10 times faster than standard mobile web articles.”
Facebook also stated this will open up a new window of opportunity for publishers, providing the opportunity to sell ads directly, as well as utilise the existing advertising network. “We designed Instant Articles to give publishers control over their stories, brand experience and monetisation opportunities,” the social media platform states.
“Publishers can sell ads in their articles and keep the revenue, or they can choose to use Facebook’s Audience Network to monetise unsold inventory. Publishers will also have the ability to track data and traffic through comScore and other analytics tools.”
As for the media themselves, BuzzFeed founder Jonah Perretti is already a fan, telling Mumbrella: “A lot of publishers will want to experiment with this and we always want to be where the audience is. People’s consumption habits are changing, and we’re keen to experiment with this. If people are consuming their content on Pinterest or Twitter, it makes sense to be there. It’s really about giving the user a really good experience.”
