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How Google’s AMP project speeds up the Web

26 points by asymmetric 11y ago

larrymyers 11y ago
Did Google effectively just take their own stab at WML and WAP? I remember using a flip phone around 2002 with that awesome technology to view sports scores.
- ashmud 11y ago
  It seems like it. This was also brought up the arstechnica comments. Google still has their WAP transformation tool ("Google Wireless Transcoder"): http://www.google.com/gwt/n http://www.google.com/gwt/n edit: It looks like Google more recently rolled out another tool (googleweblight.com) for shrinking web pages. This does not generate WAP, however. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6211428?hl= https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6211428?hl=
- magicalist 11y ago
  Only in the sense that anyone making a site with Custom Elements are taking their own stab at WML. It's really just a library that uses (polyfilled) Custom Elements. The only unusual thing is the auto-CDNing.
Zikes 11y ago
> In other words, AMP is technically half baked at best. Yeah but it's still in the oven. They said from the start that they were announcing this project specifically to get feedback and that there's still a long way to go before they would call it production-ready.
Analemma_ 11y ago
So, I figure this is as good a place to any to ask: I'm not totally clear on how AMP is supposed to work. From what I can tell, it "speeds up the web" by being a subset of HTML that forbids JavaScript, but there's nothing stopping publishers from just not putting any JS on their page right now. The reason they don't is that they need the ad revenue, and I don't see what AMP is doing to fix that. Is Google paying publishers to host AMP versions of their pages?
- Zikes 11y ago
  It sounds like you're on the right track: AMP is a subset of HTML with restrictions on what can be on the page. The key is, if a page meets those restrictions then the page can be pre-fetched and pre-rendered to allow for an instantaneous display for the user. It is up to the browser to determine if a page is AMP-compliant (following the execution of JS of the AMP project itself, loaded with the page), and if it is not (because a publisher inserts non-compliant JS, for instance) then it will fail the pre-render and load as a typical page, negating the speed benefits that AMP purports. AMP does support ads, with a built in amp-ad element[0] that works with most major ad networks. It also includes several other elements for handling dynamic JS-driven media, but it's put together so that the media is sandboxed via web components and the browser can easily determine the dimensions on the page that the components will take up. [0] https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/builtins/amp-ad.md https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/builtins/a...
  - insanebits 11y ago
    I agree with idea of the general idea of AMP. BUt this is simply wrong. What happens if I am an owner of "minor" ad network. It's essentially trying to prevent anyone entering ad bussiness in my oppinion. And what does it mean to the developer who has to create some custom interactive component because that's what management wants? I fully understand that it's counter measure against facebook and apple. But there should be better ways to improve websites performance not just removing years of web standards development. Google as a major search engine could influence faster web by giving it more influence on SERPS which would make publishers take a notice on how to make their sites faster. This is not reasonable to create yet another version of the website just to please google. Sorry for the rant, you can guess what I do for a living:)
    - magicalist 11y ago
      > What happens if I am an owner of "minor" ad network. It's essentially trying to prevent anyone entering ad bussiness in my oppinion. I'd suggest reading the whole page :) You can load any ad as long as it can go in an iframe and is served over HTTPS
rayshan 11y ago
If you'd like to enjoy the benefits on the desktop, there are extensions: https://github.com/edlea/DesktopAMP https://github.com/edlea/DesktopAMP
ck2 11y ago
omg a model 100, and people say I am stubborn to change because I still use XP (I loved the 100 but wow that is ancient)

26 points by asymmetric 11y ago

Did Google effectively just take their own stab at WML and WAP? I remember using a flip phone around 2002 with that awesome technology to view sports scores.

ashmud 11y ago
It seems like it. This was also brought up the arstechnica comments. Google still has their WAP transformation tool ("Google Wireless Transcoder"): http://www.google.com/gwt/n http://www.google.com/gwt/n edit: It looks like Google more recently rolled out another tool (googleweblight.com) for shrinking web pages. This does not generate WAP, however. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6211428?hl= https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6211428?hl=
magicalist 11y ago
Only in the sense that anyone making a site with Custom Elements are taking their own stab at WML. It's really just a library that uses (polyfilled) Custom Elements. The only unusual thing is the auto-CDNing.

Zikes 11y ago

> In other words, AMP is technically half baked at best. Yeah but it's still in the oven. They said from the start that they were announcing this project specifically to get feedback and that there's still a long way to go before they would call it production-ready.

Analemma_ 11y ago

So, I figure this is as good a place to any to ask: I'm not totally clear on how AMP is supposed to work. From what I can tell, it "speeds up the web" by being a subset of HTML that forbids JavaScript, but there's nothing stopping publishers from just not putting any JS on their page right now. The reason they don't is that they need the ad revenue, and I don't see what AMP is doing to fix that. Is Google paying publishers to host AMP versions of their pages?

Zikes 11y ago
It sounds like you're on the right track: AMP is a subset of HTML with restrictions on what can be on the page. The key is, if a page meets those restrictions then the page can be pre-fetched and pre-rendered to allow for an instantaneous display for the user. It is up to the browser to determine if a page is AMP-compliant (following the execution of JS of the AMP project itself, loaded with the page), and if it is not (because a publisher inserts non-compliant JS, for instance) then it will fail the pre-render and load as a typical page, negating the speed benefits that AMP purports. AMP does support ads, with a built in amp-ad element[0] that works with most major ad networks. It also includes several other elements for handling dynamic JS-driven media, but it's put together so that the media is sandboxed via web components and the browser can easily determine the dimensions on the page that the components will take up. [0] https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/builtins/amp-ad.md https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/builtins/a...
- insanebits 11y ago
  I agree with idea of the general idea of AMP. BUt this is simply wrong. What happens if I am an owner of "minor" ad network. It's essentially trying to prevent anyone entering ad bussiness in my oppinion. And what does it mean to the developer who has to create some custom interactive component because that's what management wants? I fully understand that it's counter measure against facebook and apple. But there should be better ways to improve websites performance not just removing years of web standards development. Google as a major search engine could influence faster web by giving it more influence on SERPS which would make publishers take a notice on how to make their sites faster. This is not reasonable to create yet another version of the website just to please google. Sorry for the rant, you can guess what I do for a living:)
  - magicalist 11y ago
    > What happens if I am an owner of "minor" ad network. It's essentially trying to prevent anyone entering ad bussiness in my oppinion. I'd suggest reading the whole page :) You can load any ad as long as it can go in an iframe and is served over HTTPS

rayshan 11y ago

If you'd like to enjoy the benefits on the desktop, there are extensions: https://github.com/edlea/DesktopAMP https://github.com/edlea/DesktopAMP

ck2 11y ago

omg a model 100, and people say I am stubborn to change because I still use XP (I loved the 100 but wow that is ancient)