Facebook removes Instant Articles from Messenger app, to introduce a paid content model later

It appears that Facebook is through with its faster-loading article format, Instant Articles, from Messenger at least. The Menlo Park company is trying out another format on Messenger if reports are to be believed. According to TechCrunch Instant Articles will be replaced by paid-content model that will be tested later in 2017. [caption id=“attachment_4036815” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Instant Artcles[/caption] For those of you who are unfamiliar with **Instant Articles** , it was introduced by the social media giant in 2015 with the objective of speeding up the load time of articles by up to 10 times which would increase user engagement on mobile devices. Facebook later expanded the Instant Articles to its Messenger app to enhance content consumption on its chat application as well. However, there were a few problems, one of which was the **lack of monetisation** . According to TechCrunch widely known publications such as the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, ESPN, CBS News, Vice and others refrained from using the platform because of this reason. There were also reports of mistakes in reporting of traffic on the pages. TechCrunch also found out that adding UTM parameters to the URL’s of Instant Articles to track the location of incoming web traffic is not easy. “As we continue to refine and improve Instant Articles — and in order to have the greatest impact on people and publishers — we’re focusing our investment in Instant Articles in the Facebook core app and are no longer offering Instant Articles in Messenger,” a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch. A report in the Wall Street Journal described how Facebook’s new paid content model will operate. According to it, readers will be able to subscribe and pay directly from the native Facebook app. However, the participating publishers would have to publish their content on Facebook’s native app only.