On Wednesday, the company announced its latest initiative to help expand upon the publishing tool. Facebook is currently testing a new feature that allows select media outlets to combine multiple Instant Articles into one post. Viewers with the latest version of its iOS and Android apps to will be able to access the posts from the News Feed and publisher’s pages, which they can then scroll through and read.
The update is reminiscent of the curation features offered by Twitter (Moments) and Snapchat (Discover). Like the former, publishers must select multiple items to bundle together in one package with a cover image or video.
Last month, it was revealed that Facebook was reportedly planning a Snapchat Discover clone. However, Snap’s tool — consisting of a series of channels devoted to various media partners that produce daily multimedia content dubbed “episodes” — has its own section within the visual messaging app. Then again, there’s nothing stopping
It will be interesting to see whether a Discover-style version of Instant Articles does materialize, and whether Facebook decides to keep it on its flagship platform or make it exclusive to Messenger — which is increasingly starting to resemble Snapchat.
For now, all Facebook has revealed is that the ability to share multiple articles in one post is currently being tested with a number of global media partners.
“As we better understand the value this experience provides people and publishers, we look forward to working with more of our partners to help shape the future direction of this experience,” the company wrote in its blog post.
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