Google, Postmedia delivering faster news
Information giants using tech to speed up page loads on smartphones
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 the markets in which it operates.
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. “We all want that fast, instant gratification which allows us to consume more content in the time we have ... It also makes the user more inclined to browse and take a chance on a link.”
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,” he said.
From a publisher’s perspective, 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.
“It’s an integration layer that optimizes how we serve content, but also works with all of our own data metrics and advertising units so we can still control our own advertising inventory,” Merchant said.
At Postmedia, AMP has been implemented for international markets since mid-March. The publications that launch with AMP in Canada on Wednesday include National Post, Financial Post, Canada. com, Driving.ca, Vancouver Sun, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Regina Leader-Post, Windsor Star, Ottawa Citizen and the Montreal Gazette.
“We are enormously pleased to launch in Canada, continuing our launches around the world,” Gingras said.