They’re calling it the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project, and it’s a standard based on existing HTML that aims to make loading web pages over mobile near-instantaneous.
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“We want webpages with rich content like video, animations and graphics to work alongside smart ads, and to load instantaneously”, David Besbris, vice president of Engineering and Search, wrote on the company’s blog.
Google is working to bring the same code across multiple platforms and devices, so whether using your smartphone or tablet, content will appear quicker than it does now.
“Accelerated Mobile Pages”, or AMP, is an open framework for building lightweight webpages, optimized for mobile devices.
Ninemsn editor-in-chief and publisher Hal Crawford said: “The competition in this sphere is really heating up, you’ve got Apple News format, Instant Articles, Google AMP”.
Google unveils a plan to make the open web more tolerable in hopes of fending off Apple and Facebook.
Google said the goal is also to tackle the issue of mobile monetisation and urged advertisers to join the project to create mobile advertising that is fast, unobtrusive and useful to users, and that will mean people no longer need to turn to ad blocking software which has recently risen in popularity.
“Readers and users consume a lot more content when the web is faster“, said Michael Ducker, a project manager at Twitter, which is supporting the format.
Publishers and content management system (CMS) providers can work together to generate AMP content. WordPress.com has already confirmed the integration of AMP technology.
Google makes a big chunk of its mobile ad revenue from Web browsers, so improving that experience is critical for helping the Mountain View, California, company remain the leading moneymaker in mobile ads.
‘This is a deal-less environment, ‘ Richard Gingras, head of news at Google, said at a media event announcing the program. Tools like AMP and Facebook Instant Articles should provide much the same service as an ad blocker – speedy access to content and slimmer data sizes of web pages.
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Facebook, for instance, is already hosting third-party news articles that allow speedier downloading time through its Instant Articles feature. Google has also partnered with more than 30 publishing partners, including BuzzFeed and the BBC. So far 26 publishers, covering 42 publications, have signed up to integrate AMP, including the Washington Post and the Guardian. Currently, the project is launching as a technical preview and only a few examples of AMP in action are available.
