Google Seeks to Speed Up Mobile Web Browsing

Google has announced a new project that could make a difference for mobile browsing. The company has launched the Accelerated Mobile Pages project (AMP), a fully open source initiative, with the underlying code available on GitHub. 

The effort is targeted at significantly speeding up load times on mobile web browsers, as performed by similar services from Facebook and Apple.

According to a post on the initiative:

"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."

"Today, after discussions with publishers and technology companies around the world, we’re announcing a new open source initiative called Accelerated Mobile Pages, which aims to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web. We want webpages with rich content like video, animations and graphics to work alongside smart ads, and to load instantaneously. We also want 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 you’re using."

 The project relies on AMP HTML, a new open framework built entirely out of existing web technologies, which allows websites to build light-weight webpages.

Google has posted a demo of the technology working on a mobile phone here. 

In addition to the announcement of the technology behind AMP, Google has announced partnerships with a big group of publishers and partners who will be integrating APM HTML pages, including Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Telegraph Media Group.

The initial technical specification—developed with input and code from our partners in the publishing and technology sectors—is released on GitHub.

Google added the following, regarding advertising, since faster page loading could have an impact on ads: "Ads help fund free services and content on the web. With Accelerated Mobile Pages, we want to support a comprehensive range of ad formats, ad networks and technologies. Any sites using AMP HTML will retain their choice of ad networks, as well as any formats that don’t detract from the user experience. It’s also a core goal of the project to support subscriptions and paywalls. We’ll work with publishers and those in the industry to help define the parameters of an ad experience that still provides the speed we’re striving for with AMP."