Facebook brings 360 photos and videos to Instant Articles

Facebook has announced some new updates to make its Instant Articles format more interactive and engaging. Publishers using Facebook’s Instant Articles can now include 360-degree videos and 360-degree photos to their content.

Product manager Josh Roberts announced the new feature in a Facebook Media blog post, saying that publishers can begin adding 360 videos and 360 photos as of Thursday, and they will be viewable via the latest versions of Facebook’s flagship Android and iOS applications.

“We’ve been amazed by all the creative and engaging content that publishers, video creators, and storytellers have shared on Facebook in this immersive new format,” wrote Josh Roberts, a product manager with the social networking company. He further describes Instant Articles a complementary canvas for 360 media, suggesting that articles and media can be combined in order to “paint more vivid scenes.”

The new inclusion will surely make for a more immersive experience on the platform.

The USA Today Network and BILD have already been testing these additions in their own Instant Articles, ahead of today’s formal launch, Facebook notes. The former combined a voice-over by Ken Burns with a 360 video to create a narrated tour of the U.S. National Parks, while BILD used the videos in an article that offered a tour of the USS Harry S. Truman vessel, says Facebook.

360 videos were launched last year on Facebook’s News Feed, and 360 photos arrived this June. Both technologies offer a different way of exploring a scene in a more immersive way, on both mobile and web.