Several major mobile players have recently rolled out their own methods of speeding up web articles to get you reading content faster. For example, Facebook has Instant Articles and Apple has Apple News. Now Google is throwing its hat into the ring with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
The project uses AMP HTML, an open framework that uses existing web technologies, to create light web pages that still have video, animations, and graphics. Google is already working with publishers like Mashable, The New York Times, Time, BuzzFeed, Daily Mail, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal to have their content work with AMP. Additionally, partners like Nuzzel, Pinterest, and Twitter will also take part in the project.
Looking ahead, Google plans to improve AMP by adding more content from additional publishers and improve distribution so that anyone can host their content and still get speedy distribution using Google’s global cache. Google also notes that with AMP, it wants to support a range of ad networks and formats, and so publishers can retain their ad networks. Google plans to work with publishers on defining the kinds of ad experience that keeps AMP speedy.
If you’d like to try Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages effort right now, you can do so by clicking this link from a mobile device. In my experience, the AMP pages were highlighting in a carousel of stories that you can swipe through. When you tap on a post, it loads extremely fast, meaning that you get to the content quickly. Give it a try and let us know what you think!