Facebook wants to keep you in the loop with its latest mobile app.
On Wednesday, the world’s largest social network introduced Notify, a mobile program that lets you set custom alerts for news, sports, weather and myriad other topics. Notify has a number of selectable “stations,” such as Fox Sports and The Weather Channel, that allow you to set your notifications.
It’s available today for the iPhone for free.
Notify is the latest app in Facebook’s ever-expanding library of mobile programs. The Menlo Park, California, company’s strategy for the smartphone has been to introduce a series of apps that address specific needs, such as messaging and notifications, that go beyond the core social-network service. The apps are designed to keep you tied closer to the Facebook universe.
Notify is part of that strategy. A sports app, for example, may provide the latest scores, while a news app can fire off notifications to your phone. Notify hopes to bring that all together in a hub that lets you control all those different alerts. CNN, Fox News and Vogue are other partners in the program. There are 70 in all.
The notifications appear on your iPhone’s lock screen. You can save the notification for later or share it with friends. A Notify feed collects all the notifications that have appeared over the last 24 hours.