Facebook Notify, new standalone news App

In its latest collaboration with publishers, Facebook launches Notify to flood your lock screen with breaking news. Notify, new standalone news App that delivers timely notifications about the things that matter to you, from the sources you love, all in one place.

Facebook released Notify, for reading customizable breaking news, info, and entertainment push notifications right on your lock screen. With Notify, any Facebook user can sign-up for customized mobile “push alerts”—the pop-ups that flash onto your home screen even if your phone is asleep—from news and entertainment outlets.

More than 70 media partners signed up for the launch, including The New York Times, CNN, Huffington Post, Vanity Fair, Techmeme, Fox Sports, Epicurious, Comedy Central, Fandango, BandsInTown and The Weather Channel.

Notify becomes available on iOS in the US. You can download Notify from theApp Store. Learn more at notify.co.

How To Get Notified?

Notify was built by a small team in New York City. The original spark came when the team thought “Wouldn’t it be cool to know when our favorite food truck were around. Or MTA schedules or and train stuff?” says Facebook Director Of Product Michael Cerda. There was no consolidated way to find that information without a lot of irrelevant clutter.

“We’re excited about exploring the medium of push notifications. We think today we’re only experiencing the tip,” Cerda tells me. “Notifications are only used to re-engage you with an app or give you a message status or something. What we’re trying to do is look at that as a surface for people to consume the information and entertainment they care about, and for publishers to reach people.”

When you first download Notify and log in with Facebook, the app will pull your Page Likes and follows to create a personalized set of recommendations to follow. This gives it a leg up over Twitter’s onboarding, which has to build your interest graph from scratch. To get you invested in the app, you’ll have to choose at least three channels to follow to get started.