Facebook’s “Instant articles” service which was launched in May 2015 knows quite the success. Indeed, Facebook on the 16^th of December 2015 announced that seven months only after it has been launched, the mobile-based service (phones and tablets) which allow Medias all around the world to publish their articles on the social network has attracted 350 global media partners. “So far, over 350 publishers have signed up on Instant articles and more than 100 publish daily,” said Facebook product Manager Michael Reckhow. .

Thus, internet users directly access media content on Facebook (texts, pictures, videos, interactive maps, audio captions, etc.). The advantage here is an easier access to content loaded 10 times faster than when using standard connection. This is vital for Africa where access to content is still impaired by a bad internet connection. However, American and European media are in greater number on “Instant articles”.

Instant articles was first launched on iPhone then extended to Android. Now, it can be accessed on any Android device. “We’ve been beta testing Instant Articles for Android with a small group of people on Facebook for several weeks, and as we saw on iPhone, the faster, richer reading experience inspires people on Android to share Instant Articles with their friends more often than they do with standard web articles,” added Michael Reckhow.

With “Instant articles”, Facebook gets far ahead of standard media. Until recently, the social network was just publishing links to web articles to which it directed readers. Facebook would display only the article’s title, pictures and an attractive summary.

Considering the interest shown by media ofr the “Instant articles” service, it is understandable to see them sacrifice some of their visitors to Facebook. They know they will gain way more readers on the world’s largest social network (1.5 billion users monthly).

Moreover, publishers using “Instant articles” keep posting ads on their content as they are allowed to collect 100% of revenues of sold ads. In case Facebook is the one to sell the ads, it keeps 30% of the revenue. Beyond these, Facebook knows the service could help it boost its audience and retain users longer. Also, its database is continuously growing. Despite all these, analysts fear that media will lose control over their content. This is the reason why media so far, have been publishing only a portion of their content, mainly magazines which are not up to date with actuality.

Assongmo Necdem