The Quint is Facebook’s Only Indian “fully digital” Instant Articles partner

The Quint Logo

Facebook’s Instant Articles offering has been touted as a game-changer in the line of online publishing and the social giant has been making a lot of right noises with the platform. In the US, there are a number of notable publishers on-board with them.The global giant and this local winner have struck a winning combinationThe Quint is Facebook’s only fully digital partner in India to launch Instant Articles.

The Quint Logo

Prior to this, Facebook had launched Instant Articles in the US with partners like New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, NBC & National Geographic.

Instant Articles loads videos and photos up to 10 times faster. Autoplay videos come to life as you scroll through an article. You can tilt high-resolution photos to explore in detail, see where it all happened with interactive maps, and even hear the author’s voice with embedded audio captions.

“We quickly saw that this was going to lift the user experience to an altogether different level. So when Facebook reached out, they had us at hello. We fast-tracked the implementation and had The Quint’s Instant Articles (test) out in a few weeks. We’re still finetuning the experience, but we’re very happy with the results so far’’, said Ritu Kapur, CEO, The Quint.

“We’re seeing great responses from readers who are enjoying the fast and interactive experience of Instant Articles and are excited to bring that to readers Quint in India. Since its launch in April this year, The Quint has grown really quickly on Facebook and given Quint’s focus on mobile-first journalism and publishing, it is a great fit for Instant Articles.” – Andy Mitchell, Director, News and Global Media Partnerships.

Will this partnership make a difference to the upwardly mobile professional Indian who consumes online data at a very healthy rate now? We are guessing that it will. Facebook has been playing all it’s cards right when it comes to instant articles. We see this move as something bigger, if not similar to their foray into the world of videos. They are now giving YouTube a run for their money and similarly the publishing platform will do to content publishers what videos did to video publishers. he competition and the future look really exciting as we are waiting to see which other players get on board and what the rivals will dish out to try and beat Facebook at this game. Only time will tell that. For now, exciting times ahead for consumers of content and the general population of Facebook. Let us see where this one goes. More on this as we get to actually use it and feel it.

About The Quint:

The Quint is media with intelligence – it is among India’s leading digital content platforms, and also among the fastest growing. The Quint is media for mobile consumption – quickly, visually and socially. A smooth blend of video, audio, graphics and text, The Quint offers a modern, sharp take on the world, and guides people through topics ranging from politics, policy and entertainment, to sports, business, food and everything else that matters.

About Shakthi

I am a Tech Blogger, Disability Activist, Keynote Speaker, Startup Mentor and Digital Branding Consultant. Also a McKinsey Executive Panel Member. Also known as @v_shakthi on twitter. Been around Tech for two decades now.

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