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Yesterday, we kicked off our series on educating publications and publishers on Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Web Stories. While we dug deeper into what Google AMP Stories mean for businesses, for our second post here’s five simple reasons all publishers should take Google AMP seriously.

What is Google’s AMP project? 

Two years ago, Google, the world’s pre-eminent technology behemoth, kicked off an open-source HTML  technology framework — Accelerated Mobile Pages — aimed at “near instantaneous loading, multi-platform content distribution, that will eventually lead to placement on Google mobile properties,” and offering an alternative to closed-platform news dissemination formats, Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles. 

So far, so good. If mobile engagement because of near instantaneous fast-loading mobile pages is your goal, then you have found the right technology. Visual storytelling is the ultimate goal for the AMP Project, and this results in three distinct areas that Google AMP wishes to innovate around: 

  • AMP Websites 
  • Web Stories 
  • AMP Ads 
  • AMP Email 

In addition, there are three big audiences for Google AMP — businesses, products and publishers — for starters. As you can tell from our mission, here at Firework, we are solely focused on evangelizing with publishers, brands and creators, the power of an open web that we share with Google. And we believe that the most compelling way to do that is through Web Stories. 

Five reasons to take Google AMP seriously

Last week, we covered why businesses and brands should take Google AMP seriously, and today we talk through 5 reasons publishers should take Google AMP seriously. As we’d covered earlier, leading innovative publishers, including CNN, Washington Post, and National Geographic continue to experiment with Google AMP with inventive results.

If your publication is dabbling in modern storytelling media, we’d highly recommend that you give Google AMP Web Stories a try, and here’s a few good reasons why:  

1. Publishers are the original storytellers

More than brands or marketers, publishers have been the original storytellers across the web. Since its inception most stories have been article-first, until recently. This is the first major leap in innovation where publishers can present stories in a multi-media format that will engage better with your readers! 

2. Images are more compelling than text

The most compelling way to reach your audience is through visuals, more than text. Google AMP technology, levels the playing field for all publishers making it trivial to craft compelling visual stories with just your in-house team’s existing expertise.

3. Modern audiences gravitate to video

As millions of younger readers and subscribers have grown up to a native mobile video experience on their favorite social media platforms, they expect the same engagement in their news.

Here’s a few examples of Google AMP Web Stories built by Vice, Lonely Planet, Refinery 29, among others. Google AMP Web Stories gives any publisher the chance to create their own Snapchat or TikTok on their primary publishing website.  

4. Innovation matters

Most of today’s modern publishers like the New York Times experiment with the latest tools in storytelling. The three biggest reasons for any publisher to experiment is to create an immersive storytelling experience for your readers that is both fast and open-web.

Not only does Web Stories get you in front of a whole new audience segment that’s growing faster than any traditional readership, but it also gets publishers to have a conversation with them on their terms, making this a win-win-win for everyone on your team. 

5. Mobile rules engagement

Google has been our primary source of finding information through Search, but with mobile’s dominance these last few years, social media has become the first place a younger demographic gets their information.

Enter Google AMP Stories. Web Stories are the easiest way any publisher can build a native mobile video presence across the web, using AMP technology that’s as easy as copy-paste for your developers, within your existing content framework, whether it’s video or photography. 

Engagement > Readership > Subscriptions

As publishers innovate with business models, increased engagement will result because native video stories increases the engagement of your readership. It levels the playing field between text-only publications to now adopt a presence in short videos on the open web. 

We will continue sharing a more in-depth look at how to embrace Google’s new AMP technology for publishers, and in the meanwhile, If you’d like to learn more, as a publisher on why Web Stories matter, check out our recent coverage here, and here

Learn more about web stories & storytelling

We’d love to hear from you on topics you’d love to hear about on modern publishing. Feel free to leave us  a comment or say “Hi” on LinkedIn @fireworkhq.

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