Facebook's Notify app is out, ready to take over users' home screens

Dive Brief:

Facebook’s anticipated standalone news app, Notify, officially launched Wednesday.
The app fits into Facebook’s strategy of offering apps that meet a variety of mobile user actions from Messenger as an alternate to text messages to Instant Articles that puts full, mobile-friendly content from its publisher partners in one place.
Notify provides its users with push notifications on news items, weather updates, sports scores and more, tailored by category to user preferences. So far Notify is only available on Apple’s mobile devices.

Dive Insight:

In a Facebook blog post, Julian Gutman, product manager for Facebook, wrote, “Everyone has different interests, so whether you’re into sports, celebrities, news, movies, music or shopping, Notify makes it easy to find notifications you’re into with a broad selection of great ‘stations’ across a variety of categories.”

The post went on to provide examples of the stations available to Notify users as well as explain that swiping or tapping a notification will allow the user to “read the full article, watch the video, or view the site.”

Notify is the latest example of Facebook hoping to get even more attention from mobile users through apps, like Messenger, that are standalone on go beyond Facebook’s main social media platform.

Callie Schweitzer, Time Inc.'s editorial director of audience strategy, told Ad Age, "Our readers are on Facebook, and we know that anytime Facebook comes out with a new product, they're going to be interested in it. And it's also a huge potential source for us of new readers. For us the opportunity with Notify is really that it's not cannibalizing our current app audience because it's allowing us to reach so many new readers."

Ad Age reports that other than the ads already featured on publishers' Pages, no other ads will be served to users through Notify.

Notify’s initial group of sources include: A&E, ABC, Bloomberg Business, BuzzFeed, Fox Sports, Vice and Wired among a total of 60 with more expected to be added in the near future according Facebook.