Part of Facebook’s (FB -3.7%) rollout of augmented-reality announcements with Facebook Connect today includes momentum around its Spark AR effort - and that includes a partnership with The New York Times (NYT +0.4%) to build filters and effects on Instagram to extend and contextualize the NYT’s journalism.
More than 400,000 creators from more than 190 countries have published Spark AR effects for Facebook and Instagram, Facebook says, and they’ve published over 1.2M AR effects to date.
In the past three months, more than 150 “effect owners” have hit more than 1B views and uses. And Facebook will open up its Portal and Messenger to Spark AR publishing next year.
For the NYT, it’s the first time it’s experimented with AR at this scale off its own site/apps. It’s built a dedicated AR Lab to use Spark AR Studio, with guidance from Facebook - and it will provide valuable feedback to Facebook on its experience with the platform.
Facebook will provide financial and technical support but no influence on the editorial side, it says.