Faster News For Mobile Phones

Google speeds up news article downloads on mobile devices.

16:14 09 October 2015

Google is set to accelerate the mobile web experience through its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) initiative that aims to speed up news article downloads on mobile devices. The initiative is supported by dozens of leading news organisations including the BBC.

 

AMP works by simplifying the technical underpinnings of the pages and participants believe that it may discourage the use of ad-blocking plug-ins. Publishers will still be allowed to tap into the same ad networks as before but may not be allowed to display some types of adverts including pop-ups and “sticky” images that move as users scroll down a page.

 

Ian Maude from Enders Analysis expects the service to be popular. "Anything which enables content to be distributed more quickly and makes it more accessible is good for the industry.”

 

"And because it's backed by Google and other companies of its ilk and several of the major publishers it could have an impact on Facebook's own efforts to promote Instant Articles."

 

Danny Bernstein, Google's director of product partnerships, said: "Today, roughly 40% of users abandon an article if it doesn't load after six seconds.”

 

"To be able to pull down an article instantly from Twitter, from Pinterest is a remarkable thing.

"We'll support accelerated mobile pages in search in 2016, but the code is public, so publishers can launch them today, and we expect some smaller apps to be able to render AMP files immediately."