Dive Brief:
- Facebook Instant articles, a product that allows publishers to post directly on the social network's platform, launched last month with a handful of publishers.
- Since the initial one-article-per-publisher test -- with publishers like Buzzfeed and the New York Times -- no Instant Articles have appeared causing some to speculate about the trial's success.
- According to a Wall Street Journal report, sources close to Facebook say that more Instant Articles will be coming at the end of the month.
Dive Insight:
Whether the initial nine-publisher test of Instant Articles was a flop remains to be seen, but what is clear is that publishers are excited about the prospect of having a new, robust avenue to distribute content. The deal with Facebook is made even sweeter by the fact that brands could keep 100% of the revenue, or 70% of the revenue for the social network to sell ads, and have access to Facebook's extensive ad inventory.
Still, Facebook even said that the gap between the initial test and the release of more articles is likely just a buffer between the "alpha" test and future articles.
“This was always our plan—we are intentionally rolling this out slowly in order to gather feedback and make improvements with a goal to scale this to additional publishers in the coming months,” a Facebook spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.
Nevertheless, if Facebook wants to keep its edge in the content publishing space, it will now have added competition from Apple, which announched a similar platform, an app called "News," and a series of publisher deals for a one-stop reading stream.
