Google will release its answer to Facebook's 'Instant Articles' early 2016

Google AMP

Google says it's Project AMP, the search-giant's Facebook Instant Article competitor, will launch early next year.

The AMP initiative - which stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages - will allow web pages to load faster on mobile devices through a new HTML format that also supporting rich content like images and videos, as well as a range of ad formats.

Google is aiming it as an alternative to Facebook's Instant Articles and Apple's News app, both of which offer similar faster load times for mobiles devices, among other features.

2016 for competition

While a firm launch date hasn't been revealed yet, Google says it will be launching AMP pages through Google Search beginning early 2016.

"Google will begin sending traffic to your AMP pages in Google Search early next year, and we plan to share more concrete specifics on timing very soon," Google wrote in a blog post.

However, with Apple and Facebook already offering quicker ways of offering new articles, Google will be late to the party.

Facebook launched it's Instant Articles earlier this year, and Apple News landed with iOS 9, which also came with an ad-blocker, which also allows for fast load times.

Still, Google says it already has support from many news outlets, including Al Jazeera America, AOL, BBC, Sankei, New York Times, News Corp, Times/Newsweek and Washington Post, among others.

Google's offering will also be available to everyone who has access to Google Search, while Facebook's Instant Articles is limited to within its app and Apple's is limited to those with iOS.