Not to be outdone by Google’s open source Accelerated Mobile Pages initiative, which recently got its own WordPress plugin, Facebook just announced one for Instant Articles.
Facebook announced last month that Instant Articles will be available to all publishers on April 12. This means any publisher, regardless of size, will be able to have the same content advantage as the major players Facebook has already given access to the feature.
To help these publishers, which by Facebook’s definition, includes any content publisher or blog, a new WordPress plugin is available.
Facebook’s Chris Ackermann writes in a blog post, “We’re always looking for ways to make it easier for publishers to share their content on Facebook, so we’ve partnered with Automattic, parent company of WordPress.com VIP, to build a free plugin for Instant Articles, which simplifies the process of generating and publishing Instant Articles from WordPress. The open-source WordPress publishing platform now powers more than 25% of sites on the web, so we are excited to help millions of publishers all over the world bring the Instant Articles experience to their readers.”
“We’ve worked with a small group of publishers on WordPress to beta test the plugin as a seamless way to adapt web content for the Instant Articles format, with a built-in suite of interactive tools that help stories come to life on mobile,” he adds. “For example, the plugin recognizes the image found in this Foreign Policy article and specifies the correct markup so the photo renders properly in the Instant Article. The photo expands to fill the screen when tapped and allows exploration by simply tilting the phone.”
When Instant Articles opens up to all publishers next month, those using standard WordPress templates will be able to activate the plugin to create Instant Articles.
The plugin is open source, so the developer community will be able to participate in its continued development.
WordPress discusses the plugin more here.
According to Facebook, Instant Articles get more shares.
Images via WordPress/Facebook