{"id":111174,"date":"2015-04-24T13:23:50","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T13:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=111174"},"modified":"2015-04-24T13:23:50","modified_gmt":"2015-04-24T13:23:50","slug":"facebooks-new-notifications-tab-is-a-robust-mini-news-hub-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=111174","title":{"rendered":"Facebook’s new notifications tab is a robust mini-news hub"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook wants notifications to become much more than a perfunctory list of recent behavior, events and invitations.<\/p>\n

Mashable<\/em> has learned the social network is quietly testing and rolling out a robust new notifications tab that pulls content from across the entire site and serves it up in one central place. Facebook, which confirmed the development to Mashable<\/em>, plans to introduce the new tab to mobile users across the U.S. first, then worldwide, although it has yet to pin down exact timing.<\/p>\n

“We are testing an updated Notifications tab that adds additional, relevant content about everything that might be helpful to know on a particular day,” a Facebook spokesperson told\u00a0Mashable<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Notifications1\"
Inside the new Notifications tab, users can still check out which friends engaged with their posts and who’s having a birthday.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The new Notifications tab will feature eight sections by default:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Birthdays<\/li>\n
  • Life Events \u2014 a list of events from your friends that were published today, happened today or happened recently.<\/li>\n
  • Events \u2014 shows events you\u2019ve joined<\/li>\n
  • Nearby Places \u2014 shows three nearby places to eat at. Interestingly enough, Nearby Places is time-sensitive and will recommend different venues based on time of day, like a breakfast spot in the morning. It will only show up if the user has Location Services turned on.<\/li>\n
  • Trending Topics \u2014 a list of three topics from the existing Trending Topics area adjacent to your News Feed.<\/li>\n
  • News Shared Locally \u2014 a crop of publicly-shared news that’s popular (read: viral) in your city.<\/li>\n
  • Today in the Past \u2014 displays several posts and photos from some time ago based on whether you liked or commented on them and how popular they were with friends.<\/li>\n
  • Nearby Friends \u2014 shows friends who are well, nearby<\/em>, but only if the user has opted in to the existing feature on mobile.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Users are currently able to personalize Notifications to show less or more of these sections, although it’s unclear whether this ability to customize will remain once Notifications rolls out worldwide.<\/p>\n

    \"Notifications2\"
    Also in the new notifications tab: a look at what events you have going on today, Trending Topics and News Shared Locally.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Clicking on “See more…” does just what you would expect: It expands to display several more relevant items, including local news stories in News Shared Locally, for example, or more posts you engaged with a while ago.<\/p>\n

    This latest rollout is the most ambitious Notifications update for mobile yet. Previously, Notifications was helpful with a more limited scope, alerting your when friends liked or commented on one of your posts, when friends had a birthday, or when someone accepted your friend request. It also showed event invitations and engagement around those events from people who RSVPed “yes.”<\/p>\n

    \"Notifications3\"<\/p>\n

    Facebook has tinkered with time-hopping features in the past, but Today in the Past takes a broader approach, including content that your friends posted which you engaged with.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

    But the new, improved Notifications tab will prove more useful for the average Facebook user, who already spends 21 minutes a day on the social network, thanks to the integration of more location-based features.<\/p>\n

    The News Shared Locally feature is a first for Facebook. Although the social network has long been a distribution platform for news (largely via News Feed), this is the first time it has heavily factored in location alongside popularity to increase relevancy for users.<\/p>\n

    And while Facebook has experimented with time-hopping features for years \u2014 most recently with the personal history feature On This Day \u2014 Today in the Past takes a broader approach. It’s not just resurfacing content you posted say, four years ago, it’s actually resurfacing friends’<\/em>posts, too. So, it might serve up a status update from your best friend, who watched a football game four years ago today because you commented or liked it and because it was a popular post overall.<\/p>\n

    –<\/p>\n

    Source: Mashable.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Facebook wants notifications to become much more than a perfunctory list of recent behavior, events and invitations. Mashable has learned the social network is quietly testing and rolling out a robust new notifications tab that pulls content from across the entire site and serves it up in one central place. Facebook, which confirmed the development […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":93994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-111174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-akwasi-osei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/93994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}