Google makes Postmedia papers faster on phones

Postmedia Inc. and Google Inc. are teaming up to make reading the news on a Canadian smartphone up to 60 per cent faster, while using 10 times less data.

Accelerated mobile pages (AMP) is Google’s open-source project, already used by publishers around the world, that aims to bring mobile web page load times closer to instantaneous. Starting Wednesday, Postmedia — Canada’s largest newspaper company — will begin using the technology on publications in most of its markets.

AMP uses lightweight HTML code and more effective use of cloud-base storage to handle content such as images, animations and videos.

“It satisfies both the publishers and the readers,” said Josh Merchant, vice-president of product at Postmedia. “In testing, we’ve seen about a 15-per-cent drop in bounce rates as well as a 60-per-cent reduction in page load times.”

The AMP project began about a year ago, after discussions between technology companies and publishers about the growing problem of slow mobile web speeds that cause readers to give up on a page before it even loads.

“The core objective was to make the web great again,” said Richard Gingras, head of Google News.

In Google Search or Google News, a lightning bolt icon informs readers that the article is AMP supported, which means a better chance of being discovered for the publisher. So far, well over 30,000 domains are using AMP articles every day, Gingras said.

“The initiative has resonated extraordinarily well with the publishing community, which is not surprising because it is trying to address core, fundamental issues.”

AMP’s HTML coding can be customized, so the website looks familiar to the reader and doesn’t compromise any of the its key revenue sources.

At Postmedia, AMP has been implemented for international markets since mid-March. The publications that launch with AMP in Canada on Wednesday include the Ottawa Citizen.