We’ve all been there. We see an article on our Facebook news feed that we’re so excited to read, and when you click it, it takes minutes to load until you finally decide you want to do other things on your phone. But a few months ago, Facebook opened Instant Articles to publishers on the social network to make this process easier on all of us. Now the Messenger app for Android will also have these quick-loading articles available for links sent through the messaging app.
Basically, Instant Articles is a system that when you click on a link from a participating publisher, it will load ten times faster than when you previously opened it on a web browser. In some instances, there is no loading time at all (except maybe for pictures) as the article is there in an instant. It solves the problem for impatient users and it also saves your data consumption as well. Now Facebook is bringing this to the Messenger app, since we also send links to each other in our various conversations.
Of course not all links are available as Instant Articles. You’ll know when it is instant when you see the lightning icon in the right corner. That way, if you’re careful about how much data that link will eat up if it’s not of the instant variety, then you won’t click it or you’ll save it for later. But if it has that lightning symbol, then you’re safe to open it and read it immediately.
The Instant Article system is only available for Facebook Messenger for Android and not for the other platform yet. Update your Messenger app if it has rolled out to you already and experience the joy of instant loading of your links.
VIA: SlashGear
