Facebook announced a new service called “Instant Articles” that will place the news directly into the Facebook Newsfeed instead of linking to outside sources.
Instant Articles is rolling out with nine media partners including BuzzFeed, The New York Times, The Guardian, and National Geographic. These media companies will publish articles directly into Facebook Newsfeeds, loading faster.
Leveraging the same technology used to display photos and videos quickly in the Facebook app, articles load instantly, as much as 10 times faster than the standard mobile web.
The list of features is impressive. They will allow for instant zoom into high-resolution photos, which the ability to move from side to side on the photo just by tilting the phone. Publishers will be able to embed a map of the location where the photo was taken. They will be able to embed audio captions into photos and stories, so you can hear the author’s voice.
The part I found most interesting is that through Instant Articles Facebook is going to allow publishers to sell ads in the articles published and keep the revenue. Yes, you read that correctly: Facebook is giving publishers 100% of the ad revenue they sell in Instant Articles.
We’ve all known that Facebook was going to start serving out news directly in the newsfeed; the intent is to keep users in Facebook instead of losing them to media sites. This looks like a very good first step … though I haven’t actually seen it yet.
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NOTES
- Instant Articles | FB.com
- Suggested reading: Read all about it: Facebook debuts “Instant Articles” | CBS News
- Suggested reading: 7 Things You Need to Know About Facebook Instant Articles | Contently
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