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.
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(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday March 13 2018, @07:40PM
This seems like it's an antitrust lawsuit waiting to happen.
Yes. In a parallel universe they'd get warned off just for even considering it, but it's most unlikely under the incumbent regime. Even since Bush II kicked out a federal judge [nytimes.com] to curry favor with Bill Gates and prevent breakup of M$ [politico.com], anti-trust rules in the US have been ignored. The effect spreads even to other regions outside the US. However, just in the US, you could see Larry Ellison testing the waters for Oracle with purchases and making more strategic purchases later. Here are four, the first (Innodb) heralded the eventual purchase of MySQL.
Then look at his additional acquisitions [networkworld.com] in the layers in the stack above that. Nothing in any of those purchases triggered even a warning. The Peoplesoft acquisition [ftc.gov] started in 2003 already. That leaves Oracle with little to no serious database competition, if the usual behavior continues that would combine with the holdings to be anticompetitive. IANAL
There was also more lately from M$ and from Apple that should have triggered some response too.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.