Google and Twitter have announced plans to introduce a new “instant article” format to their sites this fall. This format will allow users to pull up stories from within an app without having to navigate to an external browser or wait for content to load.
The purpose of this program, and others like it, is to enhance publishers’ distribution on mobile sites and make formatting more appropriate for mobile devices. While Facebook’s instant articles function hosts content from third-party publishers within the Facebook app, Google is going with a cached “snapshot of a webpage.” This stored content will speed up load times for users.
An added benefit to cached content for Google is that the snapshot will show the original ads that publishers have sold next to a story. While Facebook competes with publishers for advertising revenue, this makes Google a more attractive option for publishers.
According to Re/code, business terms for the Google and Twitter platforms have yet to be confirmed. Other similar programs hosted by Facebook and Apple allow publishers to keep 100 per cent of the revenue for the ads they sell on hosted articles.
A Sept. 11 Fortune article speculated that “each publisher would control their own ads and keep all the revenue,” unlike Facebook. However, the writers added “this wouldn’t preclude Google from offering some kind of revenue sharing in the future to publishers who might be open to it.”
Facebook is currently the top referrer to news sites, recently beating out Google, according to Fortune’s tech site. Social referrals have become a huge source of incoming traffic for major news websites and publishers, accounting for up to 43 per cent of traffic compared to Google’s 38 per cent. While a Google search directs traffic to a broader range of sites, Facebook is becoming more popular among larger news and media sites.
To differentiate their program from similar ones offered by Facebook and Snapchat, Google and Twitter will be using an open-source developmental model. This model makes the product’s source code available to the public, allowing for use and modification to its original design.
Open-source software can mean that improvements and bug fixes are created more quickly; a common expression is that “more eyeballs catch more bugs.” This means that any security threats, such as viruses, can also be caught more quickly because there are more people paying attention to the code. Google and Twitter have indicated hopes that more tech companies will eventually embrace this plan.
Although both Google and Twitter executives call the project a joint effort, publishing executives refer to it as a Google-led plan. Publishers such as The New York Times and The Guardian have already signed on to the program.
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The Ontarion publishes independent, student-produced news, opinion, and commentary for University of Guelph students so that they can make informed decisions in their lives. To do this, The Ontarion provides learning opportunities and training in journalism, media production, leadership, board governance, and other aspects of nonprofit news.
The Ontarion is the University of Guelph’s independent student newspaper. It began in 1951 as part of the Ontario Agricultural College and then began to represent the entire University of Guelph once it amalgamated in 1964. The Ontarion incorporated in May 1970 as The Ontarion, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation registered with the province of Ontario.