Facebook’s plan to directly host articles from news organizations launched Wednesday.
Nine media companies — the New York Times, BuzzFeed, National Geographic, NBC News, the Atlantic, the Guardian, BBC News, Spiegel and Bild — will now see their content directly on the Facebook for iPhone app’s “News Feed” so users do not have to open the content to load separately.
According to Facebook, “Instant Articles,” gives the publishers involved “control over their stories, brand experience and monetization opportunities.”
“Instant Articles” is expected to give news organizations’ content greater reach, while readers will experience more smooth reading on the app.
“To date,” Facebook said in a press release, “stories take an average of eight seconds to load, by far the slowest single content type on Facebook. Instant Articles makes the reading experience as much as ten times faster than standard mobile web articles.”
Ads still exist inside “Instant Articles” — publishers keep 100 percent of the revenue if they sell them and Facebook keeps 30 percent of the revenue if it sells them, the New York Times previously reported.
“Fundamentally, this is a tool that enables publishers to provide a better experience for their readers on Facebook,” Chris Cox, Facebook chief product officer, said in a statement late Tuesday night. “Instant Articles lets them deliver fast, interactive articles while maintaining control of their content and business models.”
