Facebook is shutting down Notify, its little used real-time news app

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Facebook is killing off Notify for iPhone, its mobile notifications app for news, sports, weather and more, a company spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch.

The app debuted on the App Store about six months ago, in November 2015. Notify was conceived as a real-time news app designed around push notifications “from sources you love, right on your lock screen, all in one place.”

Here’s what Facebook told TechCrunch:

Starting on Wednesday, we will begin integrating Notify functionality into other Facebook products, like Messenger, and will be removing Notify from the App Store.

Since launching Notify, we’ve learned a lot about how to make notifications as timely and relevant as possible and we heard from people using the app that Notify helped them stay informed about things they cared about throughout the day.

With more than 900 million people using Messenger each month, we think there is a great opportunity for publishers to reach even more people interested in real-time updates from their favorite sources.

To say that Notify failed would be an understatement: a SensorTower data suggests that the app has seen just 63,000 downloads since its debut in November 2015.

The app enabled users to receive notifications from over 70 news publishers, with options for granular alerts about specific sub-topics of interest.

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The app grouped notifications into “stations” covering categories like sports, celebrities, news, movies, music, shopping and more. Users could customize push notifications by cherry-picking the stations from which they wanted to receive updates.

Source: TechCrunch