Despite the failed revival of Facebook Notes, it looks like the social media platform is making another attempt to storm the blogosphere - this time, streamlining the interactive process of sharing and reading articles. In an effort to reinvigorate the long form format, Facebook has announced that it will open its Instant Articles plugin to all publishers next month - and will hopefully make reading long things on a small screen a lot more bearable.
"We have partnered with Automattic, parent company of WordPress.com VIP, to build a free plugin for Instant Articles, which simplifies the process of generating and publishing Instant Articles from WordPress," said engineering partner Chris Ackerman in a post published at Facebook's blog on Tuesday, March 8.
According to both Facebook and WordPress, who they partnered with for the product, the mobile-specific plugin lets publishers and editors customize articles with different typefaces, fonts, and scan- and interface-friendly photos. But the really big draw of the app? Instant Articles will purportedly eradicate loading time, meaning users will be able to play videos instantly, without worrying about waiting on the article, video, or photo to load. In short: autoplay is king.
If a publisher isn't using the plugin, that doesn't necessarily mean that the article won't show up with optimized autoplay: Instant Articles utilizes an RSS feed that essentially converts a non-Instant Articles piece into one with an Instant Articles format.
But Instant Articles shouldn't prove to be exclusively appealing to publishers: Facebook users can get in on the action, too, with settings that allow readers to customize and optimize their newsfeeds, providing them with preferred content as they scroll through the social media site.
"We are excited to help millions of publishers all over the world bring the Instant Articles experience to their readers," Ackerman added.
The plugin is set to launch on April 12 of this year in concordance with F8, Facebook's annual global developer conference, and will be available for both iOS and Android.
Learn more about Facebook's Instant Video plugin in the video clip below.
Introducing Instant Articles from Facebook on Vimeo.
Source: Facebook
