Facebook's fast loading Instant Article feature is finally crossing over to the Android platform. The social media giant recently announced that Instant Article is now supported for Android devices.

Instant Articles is a feature developed by Facebook that speeds up the loading of news stories. Android users will now notice the lightning bolt icon on the top corner of selected publishers' news stories. The presence of the icon means that the article is loaded on Facebook's servers and will load faster compared to other news articles.

Like Us on Facebook

Facebook Instant Articles was first released on the iOS platform in May. Experts believe that the cross to the Android platform will have a significant effect to the feature's continued rise to popularity. Emerging international markets have a penchant for low-cost Android devices. The feature could also help in conserving precious mobile data as it compresses contents.

Tech experts believe that by releasing Instant Articles into the Android platform, Facebook is strengthening its case to publishers and will play an integral part in convincing publishers to host their content into Facebook's servers.

Instant Articles does allow publisher contents to load faster and in turn provides a much better reading experience. However, some content providers are somewhat skeptical whether it is wise to give Facebook too much control.

In a statement released on Facebook's Media board, product manager Michael Reckhow said, "More than 350 publications around the world have already joined the Instant Articles program to date, and more than 100 are already publishing daily - with more joining each day."

Some publisher who are a bit taciturn about joining Instant Articles said that the feature only drives internet traffic into Facebook and not into their respective websites, which in turn puts the publisher into a slight disadvantage. A study conducted in August revealed that Facebook is the largest driver of traffic towards news websites.

Tagsfacebook instant articles, Instant Articles, Instant Articles android, Facebook Android, Instant Articles android, Android Instant Articles