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People are silhouetted as they pose with mobile devices in front of a screen projected with a Facebook logo, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica October 29, 2014. Facebook Inc warned on Tuesday of a dramatic increase in spending in 2015 and projected a slowdown in revenue growth this quarter, slicing a tenth off its market value. Facebook shares fell 7.7 percent in premarket trading the day after the social network announced an increase in spending in 2015 and projected a slowdown in revenue growth this quarter. Reuters/Dado Ruvic

Google, Apple and Facebook are all working on delivering content faster to users. However, standalone reading apps like Flipboard claim that while more media companies are embracing social media and tech companies to distribute their content, readership remains high with the platform, seeing more growth.

Facebook and Washington Post have teamed up to publish content directly onto the social media platform's site while the New York Times and Buzzfeed have paired up with Apple to contribute articles and develop customisable streams. However, even with the threat of new content platforms, Flipboard Chief Executive Mike McCue maintained that demand for the app is high. According to the executive, Flipboard's iOS downloads jumped 50 percent this October compared to September.

“If you look at Apple, they’ve built a product that has no social layer,” The Wall Street Journal quoted McCue.

“They are a hardware company with a particular approach. And I love Apple products. We have a very different perspective. We are content first and have no agenda to push.” He also added that content sharing in Facebook and Twitter are hardwired into the Flipboard's experience as well.

However, Google may be looking into a more aggressive approach with its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) initiative. The tech giant maintains that the project will ensure web remains open although some argue that AMP can be considered just another social network’s proprietary solution.

According to Fortune, although AMP seems more like a concern for media people or Javascript fanatics, the subtle move is actually hiding something revolutionary. At the very least, its impact may be more worthwhile than anticipated and media companies will actually be willing to back it up.

The idea is simple, Google will help publishers deliver content and load pages faster on mobile. Google has developed a new HTML code variation that streamlines majority of webpages through a common library code. This means publishers will no longer deal with megabytes worth of the same programming for their pages. Google will cache data in a smarter way allowing fast loading.

Vox Media’s director of product Trei Brundrett received the news well. According to his tweet:

Google's AMP appears more open and inclusive as opposed to Facebook's Instant Articles. There are those who oppose AMP with Josh Benton at the Nieman Journalism Lab suggesting that AMP prohibits any type of analytics code of Javascript-based tracking. This means publishers will be limited to the amount of information they access about users.

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