SoylentNews

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

There's been a good deal of ongoing discussion about Google AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages.

Quite a few high-profile web developers have this year weighted in with criticism and some, following a Google conference dedicated to AMP, have cautioned users about diving in with both feet.

These, in my view, don't go far enough in stating the problem and I feel this needs to be said very clearly: Google's AMP is bad – bad in a potentially web-destroying way. Google AMP is bad news for how the web is built, it's bad news for publishers of credible online content, and it's bad news for consumers of that content. Google AMP is only good for one party: Google. Google, and possibly, purveyors of fake news.

[...] What it is, is a way for Google to obfuscate your website, usurp your content and remove any lingering notions of personal credibility from the web.

If that appeals to you, here's what you need to do. First, get rid of all your HTML and render your content in a subset of HTML that Google has approved along with a few tags it invented. Because what do those pesky standards boards know? Trust Google, it knows what it's doing. And if you don't, consider yourself not part of the future of search results.

Why a subset of HTML you ask? Well, mostly because web developers suck at their jobs and have loaded the web with a ton of JavaScript no one wants. Can't fault Google for wanting to change that. That part I can support. The less JavaScript the better.

So far AMP actually sounds appealing. Except that, hilariously, to create an AMP page you have to load a, wait for it, yes a JavaScript file from Google. Pinboard founder Maciej Cegłowski already recreated the Google AMP demo page without the Google AMP JavaScript and, unsurprisingly, it's faster than Google's version.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

AMP - Google's collaborative project to speed up the loading time for mobile web pages — is getting an interesting acceleration of its own today. Relay Media, a company founded by an ex-Googler that had developed technology to help covert web pages to the AMP format, has been acquired by Google.

The company announced the news on its home page, to its customers (one of whom, Russell Heimlich, lead developer at Philly blog BillyPenn.com, tipped the news to us), and on its LinkedIn page. We have reached out to Google to get a statement and will update this post as we learn more.

For now, what we know is that it looks like Google may be closing down Relay Media as part of the deal but will continue to operate the service as the tech is transferred to Google's platform. New-publisher onboarding will be put on hold for the time being, it seems.

"We're excited to announce that Google has acquired Relay Media's AMP Converter technology," the company writes. "Service for current customers will continue uninterrupted as we transition the Relay Media AMP Converter to Google's infrastructure. We're pausing new publisher onboarding as we focus on the integration effort."

The note to existing users had only slightly more detail: some contact addresses for support and the indication that new AMP features would continue to be supported with Relay Media's converter for now, although also with a warning:

The rules for AMP are pretty close to what I learned when I first started working with HTML in the late 1990s. Why can't designers follow those rules without Google enforcing them? (Oh, right: Marketing departments that insist on three separate analytics sources. And designers who can't stay away from anything that ...

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/09/google-acquires-relay-media-for-its-amp-converting-tech-to-ramp-up-its-mobile-effort/

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages project)'s homepage, an example of basic markup, coverage at Wikipedia.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google wants you to be able to book a flight without exiting an email:

Google is bringing its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) capabilities to email today through a developer preview for Gmail. The feature, called AMP for Email, will allow developers to make emails "more interactive and engaging." Google envisions the feature to be beneficial to users because developers can embed widgets in emails that are constantly up-to-date and include actionable functions that work without leaving your inbox. Google's existing AMP webpages are an emerging standard for webpages that load radically faster than regular mobile pages.

AMP for Email is open-source so developers can freely play around with the capabilities and use them to their advantage. Companies developing features for AMP for Email include Pinterest, Booking.com, and Doodle. Google says the AMP for Email feature will allow you to do things like RSVP to events, browse and interact with content, or fill out forms without leaving an email. For example, Google says if a contractor wants to schedule a meeting with you but isn't able to see your calendar, they'll contact you about availability. With AMP for Email, you could respond interactively through a form without ever leaving the email client.

Accelerated Mobile Phishing:

Some observers believe AMP allows more effective phishing attempts. One serious flaw, noted by tech writer Kyle Chayka, is that disreputable parties who misuse AMP (as well as Facebook's similar Instant Articles) enable junk websites to share many of the same visual cues and features found on legitimate sites. "All publishers end up looking more similar than different. That makes separating the real from the fake even harder," said Chayka.

Also at Google and TechCrunch.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google promises publishers an alternative to AMP

Google's AMP project is not uncontroversial. Users often love it because it makes mobile sites load almost instantly. Publishers often hate it because they feel like they are giving Google too much control in return for better placement on its search pages. Now Google proposes to bring some of the lessons it learned from AMP to the web as a whole. Ideally, this means that users will profit from Google's efforts and see faster non-AMP sites across the web (and not just in their search engines).

Publishers, however, will once again have to adopt a whole new set of standards for their sites, but with this, Google is also giving them a new path to be included in the increasingly important Top Stories carousel on its mobile search results pages.

"Based on what we learned from AMP, we now feel ready to take the next step and work to support more instant-loading content not based on AMP technology in areas of Google Search designed for this, like the Top Stories carousel," AMP tech lead Malte Ubl writes today. "This content will need to follow a set of future web standards and meet a set of objective performance and user experience criteria to be eligible."

Also at Search Engine Land and The Verge.

Related: Kill Google AMP Before It Kills the Web
Google Acquires Relay Media to Convert Ordinary Web Pages to AMP Pages
Google Bringing Accelerated Mobile Pages to Email

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Web consultant Barry Adams has written a blog post about the problem with Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and how to fight against it being shoehorned into the WWW.

Let’s talk about Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP for short. AMP is a Google pet project that purports to be “an open-source initiative aiming to make the web better for all”. While there is a lot of emphasis on the official AMP site about its open source nature, the fact is that over 90% of contributions to this project come from Google employees, and it was initiated by Google. So let’s be real: AMP is a Google project.

Google is also the reason AMP sees any kind of adoption at all. Basically, Google has forced websites – specifically news publishers – to create AMP versions of their articles. For publishers, AMP is not optional; without AMP, a publisher’s articles will be extremely unlikely to appear in the Top Stories carousel on mobile search in Google.

And due to the popularity of mobile search compared to desktop search, visibility in Google’s mobile search results is a must for publishers that want to survive in this era of diminishing revenue and fierce online competition for eyeballs.

If publishers had a choice, they’d ignore AMP entirely. It already takes a lot of resources to keep a news site running smoothly and performing well. AMP adds the extra burden of creating separate AMP versions of articles, and keeping these articles compliant with the ever-evolving standard.

So AMP is being kept alive artificially. AMP survives not because of its merits as a project, but because Google forces websites to either adopt AMP or forego large amounts of potential traffic.

And Google is not satisfied with that. No, Google wants more from AMP. A lot more.

AMP is also purported to throw in an 8-second delay to punish those that do not toe the line.

Earlier on SN:
Google Attempting to Standardize Features of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) (2018)
Kill Google AMP Before It Kills the Web (2017)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google makes emails more dynamic with AMP for Email

Google today officially launched AMP for Email, its effort to turn emails from static documents into dynamic, web page-like experiences. AMP for Email is coming to Gmail, but other major email providers like Yahoo Mail (which shares its parent company with TechCrunch), Outlook and Mail.ru will also support AMP emails.

[...] With AMP for Email, those messages become interactive. That means you'll be able to RSVP to an event right from the message, fill out a questionnaire, browse through a store's inventory or respond to a comment — all without leaving your web-based email client.

Some of the companies that already support this new format are Booking.com, Despegar, Doodle, Ecwid, Freshworks, Nexxt, OYO Rooms, Pinterest, and redBus. If you regularly get emails from these companies, then chances are you'll receive an interactive email from them in the coming weeks.

[...] [Not] everybody is going to like this (including our own Devin Coldewey).

Also at The Verge, 9to5Google, and Engadget:

As you might imagine, Google is determined to keep this secure. It reviews senders before they're allowed to send AMP-based email, and relatively few will support it out of the gate (including Twilio Sendgrid, Litmus and SparkPost).

Previously: Google Bringing Accelerated Mobile Pages to Email

Related: Kill Google AMP Before It Kills the Web
Google Attempting to Standardize Features of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Google AMP Can Go To Hell
Google Moving to Relinquish Control Over Accelerated Mobile Pages

Original Submission