Meta has announced that it will end support for the instant articles format in mid-April 2023, a move that it hopes will focus on some of its core products, such as Reels features.
Instant Articles are HTML documents that are uploaded to Facebook at lightning speed and allows publishers to create articles and add information using a customizable article format.
According to the company on its website, more than 37,000 pages of the social network use this format and, with them, companies can know the profit generated by the ads and track of increasing revenue or creating native branded content, among other options.
The company has announced that it plans to discontinue support for Instant Articles, as many companies are opting for other means of promotion on Facebookto the detriment of these items.
“Currently, less than 3 percent of what people see in the Feed are posts with links to news articles. […] It makes no sense to invest in areas that are not aligned with user preferences,” a Meta spokesperson told Axios.
From the company they have also commented that news publishers will have six months to readjust their Facebook strategies, so they will presumably cease to be available in April 2023.
Meta has communicated that once this feature is gone, traffic from links on Facebook will be directed to publishers’ external web pages.
In addition, he has commented that instant articles have become obsolete for the implementation of improvements in the web experience from mobile devices.
With the removal of this format, Meta hopes to focus primarily on video-centric features, especially short-form or Reels, as confirmed to Engadget.
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