Facebook’s Instant Articles platform is meant to change the way its users read and pay for news on the world’s largest social network. The company continues to tweak just how it uses this platform to present publishers’ content across different mediums. It has now been confirmed the Instant Articles have been removed from Messenger. The platform was previously available on Facebook’s standalone messaging app.
When Instant Articles were first launched over a year ago, they were only designed to be available in News Feed. Facebook later expanded the platform to Messenger as part of its push to provide more features to Messenger users.
“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 spokesperson for the social network confirmed to TechCrunch.
The spokesperson added that Facebook believes that Messenger is an exciting channel for new and interesting news consumption experiences so it’s fully committed to the platform but it doesn’t see the need for it on Messenger just yet.
It’s unclear at this point in time if Facebook is ever going to support this platform in Messenger again. The company hasn’t said anything about its future plans for Instant Articles on Messenger.
Filed in . Read more about Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Instant Articles.