Facebook today announced Notify, an app meant to help deliver timely notifications about news, happenings, and goings-on directly to mobile devices.
The app lets people follow what it calls “stations” across a broad range of categories, including sports, weather, trailers, news, and so on. Facebook has partnered with several dozen information sources for content and hopes to add more over time. People can create their own list of interests, but Facebook will make suggestions based on the details shared in user profiles. Notifications are sent to the lock screen, where they can be opened, dismissed, saved, or shared.
The app includes its own browser for reading web-based articles and playing video. Notifications can be pushed to others via text, email, and Facebook. The app saves all notifications for a period of 24 hours so users can go back to see what they may have missed.
Notify is free to download from the iTunes App Store.