Facebook has announced that its online news reading program Instant Articles will, from April 12, be available to all publishers – whatever their size and wherever in the world they are based.
The social media site has so far been working with just a few hundred publishers to put together what it has pledged will be “an incredibly fast and immersive reading experience for people on Facebook”. However, opening up Instant Articles more broadly is said to have long been on Facebook’s agenda.
Indeed, Facebook notes today that Instant Articles was originally formed with the aim of overcoming slow loading times for people reading news on the mobile web. This problem, the company’s Product Manager Josh Roberts adds in a press release, blights publishers of all sizes.
Instant Articles uses familiar web languages and works with publishers’ content management systems, which could tempt many publishers to take up Facebook’s invitation to prepare for open availability.
