Google aims to get news to smartphones faster

Google laid out a plan Wednesday to make tapping into news on mobile devices faster, keeping eyeballs on stories and people visiting websites.

The California-based Internet search colossus said that slow downloads to smartphones or tablets are costing news outlets readers and advertising dollars.

Online ad revenue from Internet users is at the heart of Google's money-making machine, and mobile lifestyles have come with a love of apps that sidestep using the World Wide Web.

Getting news on the go using walled options such as Apple News or Facebook Instant Articles takes Google out of the equation in regard to advertising.

Google's freshly-unveiled Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) initiative is designed to "dramatically improve" how mobile pages are displayed.

"Smartphones and tablets have revolutionized the way we access information, and today people consume a tremendous amount of news on their phones," said David Besbris, Google's vice president of engineering for search.

"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."

AMP is designed to let stories load in instants instead of seconds, and to display ads in ways that don't impede the process.

AMP technology is free and open-source, meaning any website publisher can use it and tinker with the software.

Google said it is already working with technology firms such as Twitter, Pinterest, WordPress.com, and LinkedIn, along with 30 publishers including Les Echos, BBC, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Mario Calabresi, editor-in-chief of La Stampa, said that the Italian daily was participating in the project in the belief that "today legacy media need to take their journalism beyond their website, to go where the users are."