The long rumored Facebook new platform named Instant Articles launched on Thursday with news content from Blid, Spiegel, BBC News, The Guardian, The Atlantic, NBC, BuzzFeed, National Geographic and the New York Times.
According to the social media site, content served through the Instant Articles will load at a rate of 10 times faster than other similar content on a standard Internet page.
The company says the same technology that allows videos and photos to load quickly on its own mobile app is what powers the Instant Articles.
Besides the Instant Articles speed, Facebook is touting the interactive features of the platform. Each article can have photography that is high resolution, interactive maps and captions in audio.
Since it is Facebook, it will also be possible to comment and like on each article though in this instance the company has gone to the extreme; readers can like and comment on all individual parts of each article.
Facebook said it was working on more interactive features that will be released in the upcoming months.
Fundamentally said the chief product officer of Facebook, this is a tool that will enable publishers to provide an experience that is better for the readers on Facebook.
Instant Articles, said the CPO allows them to deliver fast articles that are interactive while maintaining all control over their business and control models.
As for the meaning of all this for publishers, it is still hard to tell. Instant Articles marks a substantial departure from the way news was distributed during the past that much is for sure.
However, the question still remains if that is good or bad. What is clear however is Facebook is using its dominance as the one of the Web’s largest sites to create a situation where publishers will have little or no choice but to accept this platform.
