Facebook Launches Notify, A Mobile News Notification Machine

On Wednesday, Facebook launched their latest effort to retain dominance in the world of social media: Notify, an iPhone app that will deliver mobile notifications from a variety of publishers. But the way Facebook has built their "news app" is not like any news app you've seen before.

Notify operates primarily by pushing headline notifications to your lock screen, which link you to the content via its respective publisher. So it's more of a notification engine than a standalone app, but if you want to save something to read later, that's done via Facebook, as is sharing.

Facebook's blog post announcing the new app explains, "To create your personal mix of notifications you select the stations from which you want to receive updates. Sources…will publish notifications through these stations when there are relevant updates. Notify also provides station suggestions based on your Facebook profile, and it's easy to discover and add new stations any time."

Facebook has partnered with several top media entities to display their content via the app, including CNN, The Washington Post, Vogue, Mashable, and Comedy Central.

It's an odd model, and it's leading many to wonder why Facebook built the app the way it did. Re/code quotes Facebook product developer Michael Cerda, who says he considers mobile notifications "their own medium," which may just be a nice way of saying that this is a bid to keep Facebook dominating your attention.