Facebook Messenger has recently rolled out a new service called Instant Articles. It promises to load an Instant Article link in much quicker time than a standard article.
Facebook product manager Josh Roberts announced its launch at the social network company's official site. The new service is currently available on Android devices. It will soon be available on the Apple smartphone and iOS devices in a few weeks' time.
Instant Articles are loaded much quicker since they have been optimized for mobile devices and converted to html 5, according to a Facebook press release.
Facebook Messenger users will immediately notice the Instant Articles. These are the shared links that contained a lightning bolt on the upper right corner. Roberts said the social network company has almost a billion users around the world. Many of them also share interesting links from the web.
Unfortunately, link sharing is hampered by low internet connectivity in many parts of the globe. Facebook expects that Instant Articles will help compensate for that. Publishers of the articles, however, would need to contact and sign up for Facebook if they want their articles to be included in the new service.
Instant Articles also supports several features such as giving users the option to like the article or post a comment on a specific item. High-resolution pictures could be enlarged with a simple tilt of the mobile device. Video clips also run automatically once a user scrolled into it.
This is not the first time that Instant Articles was released, though, according to PC Mag. It was initially launched in May of last year for Facebook running on mobile devices. Several big publications supported the initiative. These supporters include U.S. based companies such as The Atlantic, The New York Times and NBC. Publications from other parts of the world such as BBC, Bild, The Guardian and Spiegel also lent their support for Instant Articles.
