Dive Brief:
- According to Ad Age, Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) will launch Feb. 24.
- AMP is Google’s open source answer to Facebook’s Instant Articles and Apple News and is designed to optimize the speed of mobile pages.
- Per Google, AMP pages load 85% faster than standard mobile pages.
Dive Insight:
AMP launched in preview mode last October with the New York Times, the Washington Post and News Corp. as publisher partners. With AMP officially launching this week, the Wall Street Journal and BuzzFeed will have AMP sites, as reported by Ad Age.
For publishers the AMP project is attractive because it is open source and gives them more control over how their content is presented as well as control over the ads served with that content. With Instant Articles and Apple News publishers have to cede some control to Facebook and Apple respectively.
When announcing AMP in October, Google's head of news and social products Richard Gingras said, "The web today, particularly in the mobile environment, is not really fully satisfying users' expectations. And advertising, which obviously is the lifeblood of many institutions creating content on the Web, often provides great, compelling advertising experiences but also presents experiences that are a bit more annoying than they are helpful."
As consumers continue to migrate to mobile, both advertisers and publishers need to find solutions that allow them to leverage the medium in an effective manner. With Google's AMP being open source it will give more people a chance to tap into this strategy.
