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Google introducing Accelerate Mobile Pages this week

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February 21, 2016

On the heals of Facebook’s announcing the launch of Instant Articles, AdAge has learned that Google intends to launch it’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on February 24.

AMP is an open source initiative which aims to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web. Google wants webpages with rich content such as video, animations and graphics to load instantaneously. Google also wants the same code to work across multiple platforms and devices so that content can appear everywhere in an instant—no matter what type of phone, tablet or mobile device someone is using.

The platform will be built on existing web technologies and allow websites to present light-weight webpages.

To get a feel of what the faster web may look like, check out this demo from Google.

Why AMP? From Google:

Smartphones and tablets have revolutionized the way we access information, and today people consume a tremendous amount of news on their phones. Publishers around the world use the mobile web to reach these readers, but the experience can often leave a lot to be desired. Every time a webpage takes too long to load, they lose a reader—and the opportunity to earn revenue through advertising or subscriptions. That’s because advertisers on these websites have a hard time getting consumers to pay attention to their ads when the pages load so slowly that people abandon them entirely.

From AdAge:

AMP is a direct response to similar but proprietary platforms like Facebook’s Instant Articles and Apple’s News. Unlike them, however, AMP is open source, meaning anyone can use it.

Google says AMP pages load 85% faster than standard mobile web pages. The company wants to reinvent the mobile web by delivering content at near instant speeds.

Publishers, meanwhile, have been eagerly awaiting their chance to test AMP’s efficacy in encouraging readership on mobile devices. The Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed and the Washington Post are among those who will have AMP sites ready next week.

What does AMP mean for lawyers, law firms and other professional services who are publishing and blogging? Not something to get all freaked out about.

Most professionals have a lot to work on with their existing technology. A significant amount of firms are not even using responsive design which enables a pleasant mobile reading experience. Others have poor hosting and technology resulting in slow load time. Some firms bury their publishing in graphic laden websites, as opposed to publishing for the net on independent sites.

Others have marginal content. The vast majority are also challenged when it comes to social media for personalized distribution.

Google and marketing companies like AMP because of the speed at which video, animations and graphics can load. Publishing by professional services firms is not ad driven, it’s reputation and relationships driven. Firms and their professionals can do a lot with what they have before worrying about AMP.

AMP may well become the way of the world. WordPress plugins have been developed and are probably being used by the 30 publishers, including the New York Times and Washington Post, who have been using AMP since last year.

At this point, just know that mobile publishing rules and that AMP exists. We’ll follow developments at LexBlog and share developments and our thinking as things progress.

Image courtesy of Flickr by David Wise

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