This is literally AMP [1]. The feature was launched as AMP Stories, which has now been rebranded to Web Stories. They are throwing everything at the wall to increase the use of AMP.
This seems to be more focused on the distribution. The screenshot makes it seem like it'll be shown on Chrome's new tab page. So in some sense it is closer to Snapchat stories. It's basically stories in Chrome?
> This seems to be more focused on the distribution. The screenshot makes it seem like it'll be shown on Chrome's new tab page.
Yes, the point of AMP is for Google to control content distribution on the web, and they entice you to give up control over your content by offering you exposure, for now, just like they did with the Top Stories carousel in Google Search.
The irony of Top Stories is that it forced publishers to use AMP in order to regain the search results placement they already had, before Google took it away by pushing down search results to make room for the new carousel that featured AMP pages.
How are you "giving up control"? Having stuffed published in literally any sort of journal, newspaper or anything has certain formatting and layout requirements. Just because you format it in the "stories" layout doesn't mean you're giving up control over your content.
AMP also still properly directs both ads and analytics metrics, and in some cases can be hosted on caches you own, but even if not, having it hosted in a different cache is also not giving up control.
At no point in this process are you losing control of your content. If you don't want to participate, then don't. Creators decide to put their content on TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, and now this is yet another avenue they can put their contents on. How is it any different?
That should cover basically every user, but it's also open source so you can contribute any you think is missing.
Also, how many choices for analytics and ad networks do you have when you put content on Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok? The latter didn't even have an creator program until very recently, so you were literally posting your content for free.
> You make it sound like it's a very limited list... 80 analytics vendors
80 out of thousands of analytics platforms and custom analytics scripts is a very limited list.
> how many choices for analytics and ad networks do you have when you put content on Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok?
But that's the thing with AMP, I still would expect content to be served as it was on my site, it's not like I am creating content for AMP and get an audience on AMP.
Do you have a source on that? Also what % of websites use an analytic provider not included in those 80? I don't have a source either but my personal experience says it'snegligibly small, probably below 0.1%.
> it's not like I am creating content for AMP and get an audience on AMP.
Google is pushing these stories to their users on the discovery feed, so it actually is all about getting an audience from AMP. Yes, it is still being served from your own site, and while there are some limitation, you still have orders of magnitude more control over the content that you would on literally any other platform.
Riding those "Web" coattails real hard on this one, if I do say so. Seems quite confusing.
Facebook, to competes, rebrands as "Web Social Network". The technicians can slice hairs over who deserves it or no, but the distinction would be faint, in comparing similar name-grabbing exercises. Ok, Google, maybe you deserve it a little tiny bit more, maybe a smidge, but hardly.
This is literally AMP [1]. The feature was launched as AMP Stories, which has now been rebranded to Web Stories. They are throwing everything at the wall to increase the use of AMP.
[1] https://amp.dev/about/stories/