Facebook is finally launching Instant Articles for Android. The social networking giant said on Wednesday that it has launched its instant articles service for Google’s mobile operating system, which allows media companies to publish articles directly to the platform’s news feed.
The service involves more than 350 publications worldwide — including the New York Times, NBC News, the Guardian, Haaretz and Al Jazeera English (and Business Insider).
Instant Articles first launched in May 2015, and has been available on all iOS devices since October.
By hosting the content within the app, it lets new articles load significantly faster — producing a better experience for mobile users, many of whom struggle on slow connections.
The service also allows publishers to either sell and embed advertisements in the article and keep all of the revenue, or allow Facebook to sell ads — so publishers don’t lose out on any revenue by signing up.
But there have been concerns among media some commentators that the shift means that publishers are surrendering ever-more control to the company’s platform, which is already responsible for driving a large proportion of traffic towards news sites.
It’s also part of the classic Facebook playbook to give users less and less reason ever to leave the app. As it incorporates more and more features into its core product, the rationale is users will spend ever-more time on it. This, in turn, lets the company serve more adverts.
It recently launched a service to help users find highly-rated local businesses in their area without leaving its platform. It’s similar to what Yelp does — and Yelp’s stock plunged 9% on the news.
On Wednesday, former Facebook product director Blake Ross also highlighted the fact that the social network is making another major shift by encouraging users to “search for anything.” It is slowly and quietly morphing its people-centric search tool into a more all-purpose discovery tool — similar, this time, to Google.
It’s one more reason for people not to have to leave the social network to find what they want.
This article was originally published at Business insider.com, by author Rob Price.
Recent Comments