For some people, Facebook is more than just about posting selfies, semi stalking people you really like, or trolling other people’s posts. A lot of people have been using the social network to actually keep track of all the latest significant news and happenings all over the world. But because not everyone is blessed with super fast internet connection, it’s sometimes difficult to load these stories, let alone read them. Facebook introduced Instant Articles a few months again, and now it’s available on Android devices.
One of the great things about this feature is that it’s not a separate app (unlike some Facebook products of late like Messenger, Moments, etc.) and is in fact embedded on your Newsfeed. When you see the lightning symbol on an article, that means it’s one of the Instant Articles. And if you click on it, it will give you an immersive reading experience without necessarily needing a lot of data or bandwidth.
Facebook has been beta testing this feature for the past weeks, and they saw that people tend to share Instant Articles with their network, more than the usual web links and articles. There are now more than 350 publishers from all over the world who have joined the Instant Articles program and are already publishing their content. This includes ABC, Buzzfeed, Mashable, NPR, New York Times, etc plus local publishers per region as well.
While these are a lot of great publishers to have on the list, some people say that there aren’t enough Instant Articles on their feed. Maybe it will take some time for this to catch up, but with data speed and allocation still an issue for some, it might eventually be as prevalent as cat GIFs soon.
SOURCE: Facebook
