Facebook rolls out Instant Articles for iOS users
21 Oct 2015
Following a phase of testing with select users, Facebook is rolling out Instant Articles for iOS to bring fast-loading news articles straight to the News Feed without requiring users to open a new website outside of the social network.
The social network also announced a beta version for Android, which would to go live later this year.
Instant Articles product manager Michael Reckhow announced in a blog post that the new articles would appear on users' News Feeds with a lightning bolt on the upper right corner to tell users it was an Instant Article.
According to Reckhow, the lightning bolt also signified that the article loaded 10 times faster than it would when published on a platform outside of Facebook, such as the news organization's website.
"Instant Articles not only connect readers to stories faster; they also provide a richer reading experience than standard mobile web articles, with dynamic features that make the content more fluid, interactive and immersive," said Reckhow.
Introduced on a limited scale five months ago, the feature is designed especially for Facebook's mobile readers and, according to the social network it loaded 10 times faster than a standard website.
It also used Facebook's advertising software, promising faster loading and better-looking layouts.
"The most important thing we pay attention to is providing daily value," Chris Cox, who manages the Instant Articles team, said at The Wall Street Journal's WSJDLive conference in Southern California. "Daily use is something we care about."
According to commentators, Instant Articles was another example of Facebook's increasing reach in our lives. Facebook had already displaced photo albums, family blogs and instant messenger services and it was now ready to replace the paperboy by delivering the equivalent of a custom newspaper to users wherever they were.
According to Facebook, it planned to publish 1,000 articles daily through partnerships with magazines, websites and daily newspapers.
