WebProNews

Tag: notifications

  • Facebook’s Breaking News App Is Almost Here (Report)

    Facebook’s Breaking News App Is Almost Here (Report)

    Facebook’s breaking news app dubbed Notify, which has been in the works for a few months, is reportedly ready to launch.

    The Financial Times says it’s coming next week, with a handful of news partners including CBS, Comedy Central, and Mashable.

    From Financial Times:

    Notify, Facebook’s follow-up to Instant Articles, will be made available as a standalone app next week, according to people familiar with its plans. It will feature content from a range of print, digital and video companies, including Vogue, Mashable, CNN and the Washington Post. CBS, Comedy Central and Billboard magazine are also involved.

    After reports of early testing for Notify emerged over the summer, Facebook is now giving the go-ahead to a full launch this week.

    Notify is a standalone app, continuing Facebook’s push in that direction. Notify is said to allow users to follow certain publications, or “channels”, and receive push notifications when said outlets publish breaking news stories. Early reports indicated that these notifications will be short in character length, and will include links to the new outlets’ sites.

    This is certainly not Facebook’s only move into he realm of news. Facebook recently added a bunch of new publishers to its Instant Articles initiative, which has publishers allowing Facebook to publish their content, which loads super fast inside the Facebook wall – no traveling to third part sites.

    Facebook says Instant Articles are doing well – in fact, they’re getting more shares that traditional articles posted on the site.

    Image via Matteo Artizzu, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Twitter Really Wants You to Use It for Messaging

    Twitter Really Wants You to Use It for Messaging

    Twitter is taking steps to make itself a destination for messaging.

    Starting today, you will be able to receive notifications in your browser when you receive a direct message. Clicking on the notification will direct you to the DM interface on Twitter.com

    The option is available in your settings, and it appears to be opt-out.

    In order to compete with the multitudes of messaging options out there, Twitter is looking to make Direct Messages more useful to the average user. Desktop notifications make DMs feel more like a real-time chat, which could be what Twitter’s going for.

    Last week, Twitter ditched its 140-character limit on DMs. You can now send private messages that contain up to 10,000 characters.

    “While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter. Each of the hundreds of millions of Tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what’s happening in your world. That’s why we’ve made a number of changes to Direct Messages over the last few months. Today’s change is another big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun,” said Twitter at the time.

    Today is another step.

    This isn’t just for your average Joe Twitter users. This is big for businesses and brands, as Twitter wants them to be better at interacting with customers/fans.

  • Facebook Reportedly Working on Standalone Breaking News App

    Facebook is working on yet another standalone app, according to a report from Business Insider.

    The app, which is apparently just beginning to enter testing, is designed for publishers to send out breaking news alerts to users who choose to follow them.

    In short, here’s how the app will work:

    First, users will download a separate app for this. Then, they will follow certain publications or topics – sort of like Twitter. From there, publications can push notifications to their followers.

    These breaking news alerts are currently being tested as 100 characters, not including the URL. Publications can only include their own URLs in the alerts, and the app is in its nascent stage so very few publications are involved yet.

    Business Insider says that the links will be outside links – in other words they will take users to the publications’ website. But it’s pretty hard to imagine Facebook not tying this in to its Instant Article initiative.

    People do get a lot of their news on Facebook these days – whether that’s a great thing or not. An app like this could allow users to avoid the clutter of their news feeds.

    I’ve reached out to Facebook and will update this accordingly.

  • Waze Adds AMBER Alerts

    Waze Adds AMBER Alerts

    Thanks to a partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Google-owned Waze traffic app will now feature AMBER alerts.

    “As of this writing, AMBER alerts have helped safely recover 728 children. We are proud to help expand the AMBER alerts program’s reach and eager to see the benefit Wazers can provide in making communities safer places,” says Waze in a blog post.

    Waze’s AMBER alerts will only be shown to Waze users in the appropriate geographic area, and only if their car has been stopped for at least 10 seconds. Each AMBER alert will only appear once per week. Also, alerts will disappear when Waze users tap the map or once their vehicle starts moving.

    Waze will look for new AMBER alerts every 10 minutes.

    “Waze has always been about sharing information for the common good. In this spirit we hope the addition of AMBER alerts to Waze will make a significant contribution to safety and awareness for children and parents across communities everywhere.”

    As you may recall, Waze has been in the news the past few months for drawing the ire of many a law enforcement group. Some groups have claimed that a feature of Waze that allows users to pinpoint the location of police officers on a map endangers lives. The same organizations then admitted that their anger was kind of about declining speeding ticket revenues, and some police forces have been flooding Waze with fake info in the hopes of rendering it useless.

    As far as AMBER alerts go, they’re making their way into more and more of your favorite apps and social media sites. Facebook just put them in your News Feeds earlier this year.

    Image via Waze

  • Google Glass Gets Android Notifications

    Google announced the launch of a new notification sync feature for Google Glass, enabling users to see Android app notifications on the device. The feature mirrors a similar one on Android Wear, the platform used by Android smart watches.

    Google sets the scene in a Google+ update: “Max sent you a WhatsApp message, marycam81 tagged you in a photo, your Lyft has arrived… these are just some of the reasons for pulling out your phone. You want to know about the things that matter to you, but you don’t want to be distracted by your phone when you could be enjoying the moment.”

    The feature will be available in a new Glass update rolling out this week. It requires the latest version of MyGlass (v3.3.0).

    In other Google Glass news, it would appear that you can actually develop an addiction by using the device. Don’t be that weird person with the Glass addiction. Just don’t.

    Image via YouTube

  • Twitter.com Adds New Real-Time Notifications

    Twitter announced that it’s adding new real-time notifications to Twitter.com, so that you can more easily interact with those engaging with your tweets.

    Logged in users will get notifications when someone has replied, favorited, or retweeted one of their tweets. You can also choose to get them for direct messages and new followers.

    “They’re fully interactive, so that you can reply, favorite, retweet, and follow right from the notification,” the company explains in a blog post.

    “To make sure you’re getting the notifications you want, go to your Settings on twitter.com,” it says. “That’s where you can choose what types of notifications you want to get on twitter.com and via email and mobile. If you use a Twitter app, check out your settings there too, so you can refine the types of push notifications you receive.”

    The feature will roll out over the coming weeks.

    Also in the process of rolling out is a new redesign of profile pages, which bring some additional new features to the Twitter experience, including pinned tweets, best tweets, and filtered tweets. More on that here.

    Image via Twitter

  • Pinterest Launches Price Drop Notifications, Will Email You When Your Pins Get Cheaper

    Pinterest Launches Price Drop Notifications, Will Email You When Your Pins Get Cheaper

    Pinterest is about to make shopaholics very happy. Today, the social networking site announced that they will now be monitoring price drops on products and notifying users of this via email.

    Back in May, Pinterest introduced what they called “more useful pins.” Basically, Pinterest added more information to certain types of pins – recipes, movie reviews, and most relevant to today’s announcement – product prices and availability.

    Pinterest will now watch those items with price information and they’ll start sending out emails to those who have pinned the item when the price drops. The emails will read something like “Good News! Today, your heavy pendant light pin from Room 68 is 15% less.”

    “You don’t have to do anything to get notified. Just keep pinning the things you’re into, and leave the price watching to us. We’ll try to keep your inbox clutter-free by grouping these notifications into a single email, but you can always adjust your settings if you need to.There are already tens of millions of pins with price details on them, so it’s easy for you to find something that doesn’t break the bank,” says Pinterest engineer Jeffrey Warren.

    Some true online shopping deal hawks may know that there are already a bunch of services that allow you to track price fluctuations all over the web and a few online shopping sites that already have price drop notifications built in. The point is, Pinterest isn’t the first the do this – but it’s the biggest. And this has the potential to make the site even more important for online retailers.

    If you’re a business, Pinterest says that there are numerous advantages to using product pins. They “get higher click-through rates than regular pins, make your brand more visible because your logo’s on the pin, are more likely to appear in a category feed, like Men’s Fashion or Gifts and include automatically updated details, like price changes,” according to Pinterest’s Kevin Knight.

    If you’re a business looking to get started, you can visit Pinterest’s developer site.

  • Facebook Might Be Putting Mobile Game Ads Into Your Notifications Tab

    Late last year, Facebook introduced a new type of ad called mobile app install ad. The ads, which would appear on your mobile news feed, would take users to the App Store or Google Play page for that app. Now it looks like Facebook might be bringing more ads to its mobile app.

    Britt Selvitelle, one of the founding engineers at Twitter, tweeted out this morning that Facebook was now putting ads directly into his mobile notifications tab:

    Like mobile app install ads, the new notifications tab ads will presumably take the user to the App Store or Google Play page for the game in question. All Things D says the ads are based upon your previous play history, and those who don’t play games will not see the ads.

    As for Facebook, it says that it’s “always testing new channels to promote games.” The latest “is part of a small mobile distribution test” that the social network is currently running for game developers.

    This isn’t the first time that Facebook has put ads into users’ notifications tab. Shortly after launching App Center over a year ago, Facebook began to suggest you play games that you’re friends were playing via notifications. Unlike those previous ads, these new ads don’t dress themselves up as social invites, but are rather unapologetic ads.

    Like most other Facebook tests, this latest one will probably not go anywhere. It’s an interesting idea for sure, but it also has the potential to annoy many users. Facebook has already limited the amount of updates developers can push via open graph so it’s not hard to imagine Facebook doing the same with notification tab ads to limit abuse.

    Still, it’s an interesting idea. Would you be okay with developers hawking their games via your notifications tab? Or should they just stick to the news feed? Many people probably feel that their notifications tab is a sacred ground that should be devoid of advertisements. Of course, many felt the same way about email, and look at how that turned out.

  • Chrome Beta Gets Faster, Adds Notifications

    Google Chrome already holds the distinction of being one of the fastest, if not the fastest, browsers around. Now Google is working to make it even faster with the latest update to its Chrome beta client.

    Google announced that Chrome 28, which is currently available in the beta channel, speeds up the browser with a new threaded HTML parser. What does that mean? Google says that Chrome 28 will load DOM content about 10 percent faster, and reduces the the maximum stop time by 40 percent. In other words, you’re going to see pages load much faster.

    For users of Chrome for Android, you’re going to find that WebGL has been added as an experimental feature in the beta alongside Web Audio and WebRTC. WebGL and Web Audio can be combined to create web apps and games that run natively across any browser on any device.

    Chrome for Android is also getting the Fullscreen API with this latest beta. When enabled, the browser UI and OS status bar will be hidden in favor of a full screen experience. You can test Chrome for Android’s Fullscreen API with this Chrome Experiment.

    Google also details two major deprecated features that users and developers will need to be aware of. First, the Content Security Policy HTTP head is no more. Second, Chrome Extensions have been ditched in favor of the Rich Notifications Chrome API. Many see as a sign that Google Now is about to come to Chrome.

    If you want to play around with the above beta features, be sure to download the Chrome Beta here.

  • Facebook Suggests Advertising Popular Posts with Notifications to Page Admins [UPDATED]

    Facebook is doing more and more these days to get pages to promote their content, and it seems that they company has now expanded that push to notifications.

    We noticed a new type of notification this morning, one that comes from Facebook and informs you that a certain post on a page on which you’re an admin is “performing better than 90% of other posts on the Page.” It then suggests that you “advertise it to get even better results.”

    Various WebProNews writers received this same notification this morning (we’re all admins on the WPN Facebook page). Clicking on the notification takes us to the “Advertise on Facebook” page and gets us started on setting up a promoted post with said article.

    Here’s what it looks like in the notifications:

    I’ve reached out to Facebook for comment on the test, and will update this article accordingly.

    UPDATE: Facebook has confirmed with me that this is a test that they’re running.

    This isn’t the first attempt that Facebook has made in recent memory to get page owners to promote more of their posts. Last month, Facebook made a few subtle changes to Pages, including the addition of a new analytics box inside the admin panel. Facebook also softened the language of page promotion, changing the “promote” post button to one that says “boost” post.

  • Facebook Seems To Be Having Some Notification Issues

    A lot of people are complaining about issues with Facebook notifications. Specifically, some users of Facebook’s Messenger app are having problems. We’re seeing complaints that people using the app are getting notifications for old messages.

    One user of the iOS app tells WebProNews the app keeps alerting them to previously sent, old messages. This person says that from about ten messages a friend sent today, they’ve gotten about 40 alerts.

    The problems may not be exclusive to the Messenger app or the iOS version. People are also complaining a lot about notification issues on Twitter:

  • Facebook Tries Pestering You to Post a Status with a Push Notification

    Apparently, Facebook is trying to get people to engage with the network with a new push notification that asks them to post an update.

    “Name, tell friends what’s on your mind. Post an update,” reads the new iOS notification.

    Here’s a screenshot of the new push notification, via Bijan Sabet:

    Facebook confirmed to Mashable that the new push notification is part of a “small test” that they are currently running. If just looking at this annoys the hell out of you, find solace in the fact that Facebook tests tons and tons of features all the time, and only a small percentage of them ever come to fruition.

  • Learn How To Design Android Notifications

    There’s a time and place for every notification in Android. Consumers won’t be happy if you constantly spam them, but smart notification design is key to enhanced engagement. Learn more about it in this week’s Android Design in Action.

    This week’s video tackles not only notification design, but the design process behind Google Now:

    Join Nick Butcher, Adam Koch and Roman Nurik as they discuss various elements of Android Design. This week, Alex Faaborg from the Android UX team at Google stops by to talk about the when and the why of notifications and walks through a design process case study for Google Now.

  • StumbleUpon Makes Email Notification Changes

    Update: There are reports of some phishing scam emails going around based on the email described in this article, though I currently have an email in my inbox, which appears legit. I’m reaching out to StumbleUpon for additional info. Either way, be cautious if you receive such an email. You can still go to your StumbleUpon settings and see the notifications as shown in this article.

    Update 2: A StumbleUpon spokesperson tells WebProNews, “We can confirm that there is third party who is sending out spam emails that look and feel like StumbleUpon emails. We encourage all who receive them to be careful, and not to click on any links in the email. We are currently investigating it.”

    The company also confirms to us that they did indeed send emails about these changes, so that part of it is legit.

    StumbleUpon appears to be making a move a number of its social media peers have made in recent months, by seeking further engagement from its members via email.

    The company has been sending emails to users discussing their email notification settings, and has made some changes with regards to the kinds of emails people get from StumbleUpon.

    “This is a quick note to let you know about some changes we’ve made to the email settings in your StumbleUpon account,” the email says. “We’ve created a bunch of new notification options that allow you to have more control over what types of emails you’ll receive from us. These new notification options are not compatible with the old settings, so your settings have been reset. We apologize for any inconvenience, and want to make sure we only send you the emails you want to receive.”

    To be perfectly honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve looked at my email settings on StumbleUpon, and since the company didn’t go into specifics, I can’t say exactly what all has changed, but here’s what the options look like now:

    StumbleUpon Email Settings

    One thing that must be relatively new is the addition of the “Tell me when a Stumbler follows my List” option, as the Lists feature itself was only released several months ago.

    Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ (especially Twitter) have all added various types emails for users within the last year or so. It’s a good move in terms of keeping users coming back, and keeping the service fresh in their minds. Of course, that is dependent on users checking those boxes above.

    Related:

    Twitter Wants You to Email Tweets to Your Non-Twitter-Using Friends

    You Can Now Receive Twitter’s “Best-Of” Emails Daily, If That’s Something You’re Into

    Twitter Finds Another Reason To Send Users Email

    Google+ Starts Relying More On Email For Engagement

    Is Email The Future Of Social Media?

  • Facebook Glitch Brings Up the Ghosts of Groups Past

    If you woke up this morning, logged onto Facebook, and saw some long-forgotten remnants of the past – you’re not alone. Many users have complained that they are now seeing old groups on their accounts, and even receiving notifications from groups that they had previously removed themselves from.

    It looks like something went wrong in Facebook land and the company re-subscribed users to groups from long ago. It happened to me – I now belong to a few dozen old groups that I hadn’t thought about in years. Apparently, some users have even reported that they’ve been added to as many as 250 groups.

    Facebook is aware of the issue, and is looking into it:

    “Some users appear to have been re-added to groups that they have left in the past. We are investigating,” said Facebook in a statement.

    Maybe that’s one positive way to look at it. How else would you have remembered that you once belonged to the “10:00 am Tequila Bongers” group or the “Young Republicans Club.” Yikes.

    Facebook is working on the problem, and I’m sure they’ll have a fix soon. Until then, you may want to go in and unsubscribe from any offending groups on your own. Or, just put up with the flurry of unwanted notifications.

    [via The Next Web]

  • Facebook May Beep at You When You Get a Notification

    “Da-do!” Someone just liked your status!

    Facebook thinks that the visual cue of that little red number at the top left corner may not be enough, so they’re testing a new feature that would guarantee you never miss another notification.

    VentureBeat confirms that Facebook is pushing new notification sounds to a small set of users.

    Here’s what they sound like in action:

    If you truly hate the idea of Facebook playing a sound every time you get a notification, think about it this way: it’s more likely that they will scrap it as opposed to roll it out worldwide. Facebook performs small tests with new features all the time, and only a small percentage ever come to fruition. In the last few months, we’ve told you about tests for notifications for declined invites, thumbnails for photo-related notifications, and reminder notifications that pop up an hour before a scheduled event. So far none of these have seen primetime play. As it stands, sound notifications are just a small test.

    Plus, if they do roll out to all users, you’ll be able to turn them off in your notification settings with a single click.

  • iOS With Widgets Could Work Like This [VIDEO]

    Two of the things Android has always done better than iOS are notifications and widgets. While iOS 5 finally introduced Android-style window-shade notifications, Apple’s mobile OS still hasn’t fully embraced widgets. In the meantime, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has resizable widgets and Microsoft has taken the widget concept and made them the entire basis of Windows Phone 8 with Live Tiles.

    One Apple fan has taken inspiration from Android and Windows Phone 8 and created a concept video for how widgets could work on an iPhone. YouTube user maxrudberg, who also creates themes for Apple operating systems, created the video to show “how the iOS home screen could become more.” From his video description:

    In this concept, an app icon can be resized from 1×1 to 2×2 or 4×2, similarly to how you would on Windows Phone 8. The increased size can house widget like functionality and provide easy access to core features of that particular app. For example, you could expand the Settings icon into a widget with a brightness slider, and quick toggles for WiFi, Bluetooth, Personal Hotspot and Do Not Disturb.

    The newfound space could also be used to give a miniaturized window into the app, showing content already on the home screen. This could be useful for Phone, Messages or Mail. Instead of a glaring red badge, you’d be able to see the messages or calls directly on the home screen.

    To launch the app, you can press the shrunken app icon in the lower left.

    The expanded icons can be moved around like regular icons and placed in the manner you like. But for obvious reasons, you cannot place an expanded icon in the dock; it would just slide back onto the home screen.

    One could imagine that this functionality would also be available to developers, who could include it for their apps.

    This would rather nicely complement the existing feature set of iOS and make the home screen more engaging.

    The iOS homescreen certainly could use some redecorating. Though the brand recognition of the iOS homescreen is something Apple is still enjoying, looking the same as it did in 2007 might not be the best strategy when potential customers see the functionality widgets bring to other mobile OS’. Just this week a new survey showed that iPhone loyalty is on the decline.

  • Facebook Imposes New Rules For The Notifications API

    Developers have been seeing some pretty positive results from the Notifications API. That’s the report today from Facebook as the social network updates us on the latest numbers from those participating in the beta that was announced back in August.

    If you’re not familiar with the new Notifications API, it’s essentially a method in which developers can send messages directly to players. Instead of having to wait for a player to boot up their game or see an email, the developer can send messages to the player via their notification feed on Facebook proper.

    Facebook reports that developers sending “high quality notifications” to active users are seeing click through rates of 25 percent or higher. They point out that this is significantly higher than traditional direct response channels like email. One developer in particular, KIXEYE, sees a 30 percent click through rate with War Commander.

    As said before, the key to getting such a high click through rate is to craft high quality notifications. As such, Facebook will now be implementing two new quality control measures for notifications on November 9:

  • No sending notifications to inactive users. Apps should only send notifications to users who have visited their app in the last 28 days. Data shows that user engagement drops sharply after this time and raises the risk your app will be flagged as spam.
  • High volume senders must maintain a minimum click-to-impression ratio. Apps sending a high volume of notifications must maintain a minimum 17% click-to-impression (CTI) ratio on notifications. Our data shows that apps with a CTI of 17% or higher will keep users coming back for a longer period of time. If your app dips below this threshold on a weekly basis, we may block access to notifications for your app.

    • For more information on these and other quality control measures, check out the documentation.

    Since the introduction of the Notifications API, Facebook has also featured Insights into how well said notifications were doing. Now you can separate notifications into groups and track each one with a custom ref_param. This will help you evaluate the performance of separate notifications so you can improve user response.

    The Notifications API is still in beta, but it looks like its coming along very well. Combined with the Mobile App Install Ads, developers now have more tools than ever to drive users to their apps.

  • Facebook May Notify You an Hour Before Your Event Begins

    Facebook is currently testing a pretty useful new feature that has to deal with notifications. For some users, Facebook is now pushing a notification exactly one hour before any event they’re a member of.

    To receive the notification, you must have joined the event via positive RSVP. That means you won’t receive notifications for every single event that you’ve just been invited to. The notification will appear in your inbox alongside all of your other notifications (likes, tags, photos, etc.) and will tell you that you have an “event in __ minutes” and display which event in bold.

    Here’s what Facebook had to say about the test:

    This is a feature we’ve been testing for a couple months with a small percentage of users. How it works is that people who RSVP “Join” to an event will receive a push notification and a jewel notification an hour before the event begins.

    There’s no word on how close Facebook is to rolling this out to all users – Facebook performs dozens and dozens of tests every month and not all of them come to fruition. This little feature would be nice though, as notifications can be pushed to your mobile devices. If you’re out and about, an hour may give you just enough time to catch that event that you may have forgotten about.

    Speaking of notifications, you’re probably going to start seeing more and more of them soon. In August, Facebook announced the launch of the Notifications API beta, which allow developers to “send short, custom messages to [their] existing users through the Facebook notifications jewel.” Developers are strictly limited to non-spammy non-obscene notifications, and users will be able to opt out of notifications with a simple click of the “x” inside the notification itself.

    [via The Next Web]

  • Foursquare Lets You Keep Tabs on Friends, Even When They’re Far, Far Away

    Foursquare has just made it easier to keep track of your friends’ check-ins, even if they aren’t nearby. Now, you can stalk keep tabs from a distance with the new “Always on” notification feature

    “Have friends or family that live in another city, state, or country? Now you can choose to receive notifications when they check in, even if they’re not nearby or you have all check-in notifications turned off. Is your spouse traveling for work? See when he or she arrives at the airport safely. Friends visiting Iceland for a week? Easily keep up with their glacier-climbing, fermented-shark eating adventures,” said the company in a blog post.

    Note that enabling “always on” for a particular friend will override the fact that you’ve turned all notifications off.

    All you have to do is go to a friend’s profile and open up the drop-down menu at the top right. There, you’ll find three options for when you’ll receive their check-ins via notification: when they’re nearby, never, and the new “always.”

  • LinkedIn Launches New Notifications Feature

    LinkedIn has just announced an all new notifications feature that they say will help users stay connected in real time.

    Here’s what’s new: Users will now see a flag and a new envelope icon at the top of the homepage. When you have something new, a red circle will appear.

    The envelope icons handles new messages as well as connection requests. The flag icon will notify you when someone likes one of your posts, comments on one of your posts, views your profile, accepts a request, and so on.

    “We’ve been working hard to bring you new ways to access the most relevant professional information and insights to help you be even better at your job, everyday,” says Angela Yang on the LinkedIn blog. “Launching today is our new notifications feature, which will keep you notified in real-time when someone likes what you’ve shared on LinkedIn, views your profile, accepts your invitation, and much more.”

    According to LinkedIn, the new notifications are rolling out today, but it could take some member up to a few weeks to see the flag icon at the top of the homepage.

    And although notifications are currently a web-only feature, LinkedIn says that they’re coming to iOS and Android soon. “Now, you’ll never miss a comment or update to an engaging discussion about a news article or trending topic on LinkedIn, right from your fingertips,” says Yang.

    In July, LinkedIn rolled out a significant redesign of their homepage – one that made the experience much more social. They replaced the text-heavy stream of old with a media-rich feed that resembles Google+, if anything.