In her column this morning, New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan writes that paper is planning to publish “about 30” stories per day on Facebook’s Instant Articles platform in the coming weeks.
One experimental story has been presented so far, and the full feed of about 30 Times stories a day will go live later this month. About the same number (about 10 percent of the full Times offerings each day) will be available with the Apple news app, Mr. Wilson said, but the story choices will be different in both cases.
Earlier this week, Business Insider reported that none of the outlets selected to pilot Facebook’s Instant Articles program had published additional articles since the program debuted. The Wall Street Journal reported the next day that more Instant Articles would follow sometime in June:
“This was always our plan—we are intentionally rolling this out slowly in order to gather feedback and make improvements with a goal to scale this to additional publishers in the coming months,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
The Instant Articles program, which had been looming on the horizon since it was alluded to late last year, was greeted with a mix of enthusiasm and trepidation from media types, who alternatively hailed it as a “Faustian bargain” and a “fantastic opportunity.”
(h/t Jeremy Barr)
