Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. (AP photo)
Accelerated Mobile Pages, Google’s new initiative aimed at making the mobile Web load faster, has drawn adherents from the realms of analytics, advertising and publishing, according to an announcement from two Google executives released today.
The announcement comes more than a month after Google debuted Accelerate Mobile Pages, or AMP, a proposed Web standard that imposes constraints on the bulkier elements of Web design to ensure that pages load quickly. AMP was greeted at launch by a mixture of applause and hand-wringing from digital media experts, who alternatively hailed the measure as a much-needed remedy for sluggish mobile article pages or an effort from Google to dictate how the Web should be configured.
Now comes word via Google that AMP’s standards have been adopted by several bellwethers of Web publishing since its Oct. 7 unveiling, including those that Google controls. DoubleClick, a subsidiary of Google that provides companies with advertising services, is now working within AMP. AdSense, Google’s flagship advertising program, has also embraced the standard, as has the content marketing platform Outbrain and programmatic advertising company OpenX.
Together with a group of publishers numbering in the thousands and analytics firms such as comScore and Chartbeat, these companies have poised AMP for greater adoption throughout the digital news ecosystem, say Google head of news Richard Gingras and David Besbris, vice president of engineering at Google:
Speed and user experience. This is the mantra of the AMP Project as we seek to make the web fast and compelling. Speed is also the byword in the project’s growth and progress. In the six weeks since the October 7 announcement, there has been a whirlwind of activity from publishers, technology providers and developers.
It remains to be seen whether today’s announcement will draw pushback from developers who say the proposed standard makes the Web less open. But evidence of gathering momentum throughout the industry indicates that AMP may be here to stay regardless of the opposition it faces.
