Social network is working on a real-time news app that will be called Notify

folarin okunola

October 16, 2015 7:30 AM

The app seems to let users subscribe to certain news organizations tagged “stations,” and receive notifications when the websites of these outlets push out new stories.

Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg

In its ever continuing quest for dominations, Facebook is already preparing to take over another responsibility for online media: notifications.

It is well known that the company has been working in a real-time news app, and reports have surfaced suggesting that it is now close to launching the software with name Notify.

According to a report today by The Awl, the app seems to let users subscribe to certain news organizations tagged “stations,” and receive notifications when the websites of these outlets push out new stories.

The project aims to build on Facebook’s ever-growing presence as a platform for various segments of the online news business, similar to its Instant Articles format for repackaging webpages as fast-loading subsets of the Facebook app itself.

READ: Social media network testing YouTube-style dedicated video hub

There are hardly any media companies that have a well-built smartphone app that a majority of its users actually use, at least not in any way close to the capacity of Facebook.

This gives Facebook the opportunity to add news alerts to the the many other reason it notifies users every day.

And even if any of the media sites have a high number of readers, say the New York Times and BuzzFeed, for example, users will most likely have Facebook notifications on rather than any of the many websites they follow.

folarin okunola