On April 12th during Facebook’s F8 conference, they will open the Instant Articles program to all publishers. That’s right – any size and anywhere in the world. Up to this point, Facebook has been working with a few hundred publishers around the world in order to build an incredibly fast and immersive reading experience for people on Facebook.
But wait, what does Instant Articles do? It solves the problem of slow loading times on the mobile web. This is a huge problem for publishers, especially ones with audiences where low connectivity is an issue. So, Facebook set out to make it fast and easy for all publishers to reach their audiences on Facebook – yay!
This makes sense because media organizations and journalists are an integral part of Facebook. With Instant Articles, publishers have full control over the display of their stories, can bring their own direct-sold ads and keep 100% of the revenue. Oh, one more thing, they can track data on the ads served through their existing ad measurement systems or they can monetize their content through the Facebook Audience Network. They can even use their existing web-analytics systems to track article traffic or use third-party providers.
It is super convenient for publishers to have the freedom to use the tools they already use while having access to all of the multimedia tools Facebook provides too. It is clear that Facebook’s goal is to connect people to the stories, posts, videos and photos that matter. Now, whether we are in the doctor’s office or sitting waiting for our plane, we won’t have to wait a full minute to read a single news article or blog post from your favorite thought leader. Just sit tight, April is coming.
P.S. If you want to find out more details on Instant Articles, check out Facebook’s video on it. Also, they ask that all interested publishers review their documentation and prepare for open availability in April.
