Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) Messenger will now support instant articles, and news stories will now load faster on the messenger app. These articles have been there for some time on the mainstream Facebook platform, but they are now available on the Facebook Messenger. Instant articles will appear as lightning bolts on the links that have been shared on the platform.
Instant articles before
Before these developments, instant articles would load on the Facebook browser. According to Engadget, these articles will now load on the application 10 times faster than before, and it will feel as if they are being read from the main Facebook app. Facebook has been keen on its mobile users of late, and perhaps that is why instant articles have now been extended to the mobile platform. With this move, the mobile platform is likely to become even more popular.
Indeed, Facebook has had a long journey experimenting with Instant Articles. It efforts are finally bearing fruits, with the new instant article support for the messenger expanding the news stories feature of the social networking giant beyond its main application.
The instant article support will soon be on iOS
Currently, the instant article support is only available on Android, but it will soon be available on the iOS platform, according to a report by Facebook. It is not clear how well these articles are doing so far, but given the number of its subscribers and the plan to focus on friends’ posts, the future seems bright. Facebook’s Instant articles are comparable to Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which are already a success.
With several chatbots being developed by the minute, Facebook’s move to introduce its articles on the mobile platform is a move on the right direction, as more people are sharing stories on the social network platform every day.