Instant Recall

Writing for The Verge, Casey Newton reports that publishers are abandoning Facebook’s Instant Articles format:

Two years after it launched, a platform that aspired
to build a more stable path forward for journalism
appears to be declining in relevance. At the same time
that Instant Articles were being designed, Facebook
was beginning work on the projects that would ultimately
undermine it. Starting in 2015, the company’s algorithms
began favoring video
over other content types, diminishing
the reach of Instant Articles in the feed. The following
year, Facebook’s News Feed deprioritized article links
in favor of posts from friends and family. The
arrival this month of ephemeral stories
on top of the News
Feed further de-emphasized the links on which many
publishers have come to depend.

In discussions with Facebook executives, former employees,
publishers, and industry observers, a portrait emerges
of a product that never lived up to the expectations
of the social media giant, or media companies. After
scrambling to rebuild their workflows around Instant
Articles, large publishers were left with a system
that failed to grow audiences or revenues.

Building a business on top of someone else’s platform offers little control or visibility���and ties your fortunes to their priorities, not your own. Newton writes that many publishers are instead throwing in with Google’s AMP platform, which feels like a frying-pan-to-fire maneuver.

The Verge | Instant Recall