After a month in beta testing, Facebook has finally unveiled its Instant Articles service for Android users earlier this month.
Instant Articles is a new service provided by Facebook that lets content providers such a new organizations host their stories directly on the social media site. This allows for around ten times faster loading for the articles, which Facebook product manager Michael Reckhow said will encourage readers to share these articles more.
Facebook announced the new service early this year and began offering it on Apple's iOS in May. Beta testing for the Android version began in October before finally being made available to the public last Dec. 16, Top Tech News reported.
The social media giant said that they currently have 350 publishers from all over the world signed up for the program. The list includes major news organizations and content providers like The Huffington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, and China Daily.
Reckhow reported that there are new publishers from different countries are joining daily. "We're thrilled to collaborate with our partners in each of these regions, and we will continue to advance the product based on their feedback," he remarked.
Publishers under the Instant Articles program earn through selling ads on their article posts. Additionally, they have the option to let Facebook do the selling and receive a portion of the revenues.
Several other companies, including Google and social network aggregator Flipboard are also said to be currently working on their own content publication platforms. Google is expected to roll out its own competitor to Instant Articles by next year, The Verge reported.