It will soon take less time to load links when friends share an article via Facebook Messenger.
Facebook announced on Thursday that it is bringing Instant Articles to Messenger so that users can view links faster and easier without having to leave the messaging app.
The Facebook version of Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP), Instant Articles is the faster-loading version of publisher's site.
Instant Articles helps make reading articles on the web faster when on a mobile device, an activity that can be painful since pages load slowly after being filled with media and ads. It works by eliminating the need for users to wait for a website to load in their browser since Facebook hosts the content itself. This results is the content being displayed up to 10 times faster, which could lead to more clicks on sites since viewers won't get frustrated and exit when it takes too long to load.
Facebook's Instant Articles feature became available to publishers back in April and has since been integrated in its main app.
Now, the feature has begun to roll out for Messenger.
However, some users will have to wait for Instant Articles a bit longer, depending on whether or not they use iOS.
The company announced that it will begin to roll out Instant Articles first for Android, so those users can be on the lookout for an update for the app. Facebook will then add support for iOS in "the coming weeks."
Users will be able to tell if Instant Articles is available in the app by the lighting bolt icon that will be located in the upper right corner of the messages shared and which includes an embedded link.
Of course, not every link or article will have this feature, depending on whether or not the publisher has enabled it. However, adding Instant Articles to Messenger may help to get more publishers on board.
"Currently, links shared via Messenger load in a mobile browser, which can be a slow experience, especially in places where low connectivity is an issue," Messenger product manager Josh Roberts states in a blog post. "Now people can have the same fast, interactive experience reading Instant Articles in Messenger that they have in the Facebook app, and publishers can tell beautiful stories and reach their audiences through both Facebook and Messenger."
Instant Articles is just the latest feature that has been included in Messenger. Most notably, bots continue to hit the messaging app. In fact, it was CNN that was among the first to launch a bot for Messenger to bring articles to users.
Android users can look out for the Messenger update with Instant Articles now, while iOS users can expect it sometime soon.
Source: Facebook
