Facebook To Expand Instant Articles

Facebook Inc FB launched its Instant Articles platform last year in an effort to give publishers a new way to share their content. To begin with, media outlets like the New York Times, BuzzFeed and NBC News all made content available on Facebook's new platform, but the social media site has rapidly expanded the offering and is expected to allow anyone with a website to use Instant Articles beginning in April.

The Benefit Of Instant Articles

Instant Articles can be beneficial to publishers because the platform makes their content more accessible than displaying it on their own sites. Facebook users can share Instant Articles with each other and the content is displayed directly on Facebook rather than requiring the reader to visit an outside website.

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This significantly speeds up load times, making content easier to access for mobile readers. As more and more people browse from their smartphones, page load times and ease of accessing content is becoming extremely important. Not only that, but Facebook has a competitive advertising agreement as well. Publishers who sell their own ads keep 100 percent of the profits, while those that Facebook sells pay out 70 percent of the revenue.

Facebook Growth

Instant Articles not only benefits the publishers, but it is a good way to get people on Facebook and keep them there longer as well. By allowing all publishers to use the platform, Facebook will offer a huge variety of content, which will appeal to more of the site's users.

Still Some Kinks

While Instant Articles is expected to continue growing, there are still some concerns about the future of displaying content on Facebook.

Some publishers feel it gives the social media site too much power over their content and that in the future the site could change what users can and can't see in their newsfeed. Others, like the Wall Street Journal, are unsure of how to mesh this offering with their own pay-gated articles.