Google expands AMP project with AMP stories launch

Google has launched AMP stories, an addition to the AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) Project that provides content publishers with a mobile-focused format for delivering news and information as visual tap-through stories.

The solution is designed to bring stories to life in a visual way to help publishers get their readers’ attention on mobile devices, where users typically browse lots of articles, but engage with few in-depth. It’s the result of a collaboration between Google and a group of publishers including CNN, Conde Nast, Hearst, Mashable, Meredith, Mic, Vox Media, and The Washington Post.

AMP stories are built on the technical infrastructure of AMP to provide a fast, rich experience on the mobile web. Just like any web page, a publisher hosts an AMP story HTML page on their site and can link to it from any other part of their site to drive discovery. And, as with all content in the AMP ecosystem, discovery platforms can employ techniques such as pre-renderable pages, optimized video loading and caching to optimize delivery to the end user.

AMP stories aim to make the production of stories as easy as possible from a technical perspective. The format comes with preset but flexible layout templates, standardized UI controls, and components for sharing and adding follow-on content.

AMP stories are available for everyone to try on their websites from today. As part of the AMP Project, the AMP stories format is free and open for anyone to use. To help you get started, there’s a tutorial here.

You can also see AMP stories in action in Google search by entering g.co/ampstories into your mobile browser, then enter Mashable as the search term in the search box that appears. Scroll down and you will see a carousel of Visual Stories (AMP stories) from Mashable.com flagged both with the Visual Stories title and the AMP lighnting flash icon.