Google has launched the more “visually-rich” AMP Stories format, a new format that is part of its AMP project for speeding up page loads for content publishers. AMP Stories, according to Google, will be even more focused on delivering a speedy experience to users, while also providing them with a more visually appealing format when reading news. To accomplish this, AMP Stories is presented in a way that lets users tap through the content featuring large pictures and video with vivid colors and bold imagery. Tapping on pages when viewing AMP Stories would allow the user to cycle through pages of content seamlessly and quickly, building off of Google’s main goal for AMP web pages of keeping the performance at a high standard for when mobile users are browsing through content.
Google plans to release AMP Stories on a wider scale at some point but for now the format is reportedly in early development, and during this process Google has only worked with a handful of publishers to get things started, including CNN, Conde Nast, Hearst, Mashable, Meredith, Mic, Vox Media, and the Washington Post. That said Google has also released the Developer Preview for AMP Stories and is making it available as of today for any sites who wish to check it out.
Google says the AMP Stories dev preview is free and open for anyone to use, but more than that it’s also possible to search for AMP Stories from today as well. Searching for AMP Stories would have to be done on a mobile browser and would need to include one of the publishers that Google is working with for AMP Stories in its current state, so for now finding the content might be a little more limited. Also worth noting is that Google wants to expand AMP Stories to more of its products in the future in addition to increasing the ways in which AMP Stories can be found using Google Search. For those looking to test AMP Stories on their own websites using the dev preview, Google has put together a quick little tutorial on some relevant documentation that is recommended to check out prior to giving things a go.