Facebook Instant Articles Now Available Worldwide

A while back, we reported that Facebook’s Instant Articles rolled out in India. This week, Facebook Instant Articles is now available for everyone with an Android phone. To refresh your memory, Facebook Instant Articles allows users to read partner publishers’ articles right on their News Feeds. So for example, if a Facebook user clicks on a lightning icon at the side of a BuzzFeed or The Verge article, they’d be able to read the full article without being redirected to a browser.

The previous Droid Report with news about Instant Articles: https://www.droidreport.com/facebook-rolls-out-major-updates-11733.

For the publishers who have signed up for the service, this could mean greater readership and more traffic, as more people would be able to read their articles. This is because of the fact that some countries offer Free Facebook access on some telcos, as well as the fact that a majority of users want their quick fix, right here, right now.

The interface is gorgeous. Videos load instantly, and there is no discernible lag. According to Trak.In, there is a total of 350 publishers that have signed up to partner with Instant Articles around the globe, 25 of which are from India. In the same article, Trak.In notes that there were nine publishers initially invited to test the Beta version of the feature.

This is the list of the nine publishers that enjoyed the Instant Articles feature in its Beta phase:

-The New York Times

-National Geographic

-BuzzFeed

-NBC

-The Atlantic

-The Guardian

-BBC News

-Spiegel

-Bild

In the post about the global rollout of Instant Articles, tech blog The Verge announced that it is one of the 350 global publishers that are on Instant Articles. Again, find the tiny semi-transparent lightning icon on the publisher’s post, and you’ll know that that is an Instant Article you can read right from the Facebook app. The icon is located on the article’s preview photo, on the top-right corner, as shown on this article’s photo.

All these swift changes at Facebook may have taken a toll on the service, as several instances of #FacebookDown were reported on Twitter from Dec. 13 to Dec. 16. Expect more moments of the service and social network getting similar hiccups, as Facebook seems to be on a roll with pushing out major updates. If you think about it, it’s a very small price to pay for enriched features.

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Facebook’s Instant Articles Page for Publishers: https://instantarticles.fb.com/

Facebook’s Instant Articles Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/instantArticles/

With information from:

Trak.In: https://trak.in/tags/business/2015/12/17/facebook-instant-articles-android-25-india-publishers/

BuzzFeed: https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/facebooks-instant-articles-go-live-to-andriod-users?utm_term=.akeg15NX3A#.xmMyQ6qrgk

The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/16/10297298/facebook-instant-articles-android-now-available