After allowing select publishers to test out Instant Articles, Facebook will open up its publishing platform to publishers all over the world. Starting April 12 at Facebook’s F8 conference, publishers of all sizes with a website and a Facebook page can post content via Instant Articles.

“Facebook’s goal is to connect people to the stories, posts, videos or photos that matter most to them. Opening up Instant Articles will allow any publisher to tell great stories, that load quickly, to people all over the world. With Instant Articles, they can do this while retaining control over the experience, their ads and their data,” said Josh Roberts, product manager in a recent Facebook blog post.

This change comes 11 months after Instant Articles was originally launched. Only available on Facebook’s mobile app (iOS and Android), Instant Articles are optimized for the web and the platform includes rich storytelling capabilities, branded design and a customized visual display. Instant Articles also allows publishers to sell their own ads on the platform, keeping 100% of the revenue. Unsold ad inventory is sold through Facebook’s own network and that ad revenue is shared.

As Facebook explains it, the platform can be used for any type of article, including breaking news, daily coverage or long-form journalism. It requires that all articles published on Instant Articles also be posted on the publishers’ main website, so if a reader shares a particular piece by email or via social media, they are sharing the link to the publisher’s website as well.

“We built Instant Articles to solve a specific problem-slow loading times on the mobile web created a problematic experience for people reading news on their phones. This is a problem that impacts publishers of all sizes, especially those with audiences where low connectivity is an issue. With that in mind, our goal from the beginning was to open up Instant Articles to all publishers and we’re excited to be able to do that in a way that makes it fast and easy for all publishers to reach their audiences on Facebook,” Roberts said.

Why publish on a news website as well as Facebook? Facebook says Instant Articles can load articles as much as 10 times faster than the standard mobile web, and it provides publishers with another outlet to attract readers and earn revenue. To date, “a few hundred publishers” including The New York Times, Guardian, Huffington Post, the Washington Post, Slate and BBC have tried Instant Articles.

According to the Wall Street Journal, some publishers are hesitant about going “all in” with Instant Articles. Publishers like the New York Times only post some of their content via Instant Articles, while others like the Washington Post, have put quite a bit of their content on the platform.

The experience hasn’t been all sunshine and roses though. Early on publishers were frustrated at advertising restrictions, reports the Wall Street Journal, but Facebook has taken their feedback to heart. In December, Facebook relaxed its rules on allowable advertising volume and advertising, and publishers like Vox and Business Insider have been pleased with the results.

Insider Take:

In response to Facebook’s Instant Articles, Google created its own mobile-optimized product, Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), originally set to launch today. [Note: Business Insider reports that Google released AMP, a day early.]

The goal of AMP was similar to Facebook in wanting to reduce the load time of mobile pages. The key difference is that Instant Articles is proprietary while AMP is open source and available to anyone to use, without an invitation. From the outset, Google has partnered with publishers and businesses to develop AMP. Some of Google’s partners also publish using Instant Articles.

That tells us two things: 1) long page load time on mobile devices is a deal breaker for readers and publishers alike, and 2) publishers are interested in utilizing tools on a variety of platforms. They don’t need exclusive publishing platforms anymore; they want to utilize platforms that attract and retain readers and that help them monetize their products. Put simply, more exposure is better.

Regardless of what Facebook or Google (aka Alphabet) stand to gain, we are pleased to see that they are working with publishers to help them solve key challenges in the mobile age. Ultimately, everyone benefits from such partnerships.