Facebook is giving up on its attempt to be your go-to news outlet. Just seven months after it made its initial debut, the standalone Notify app, which provided push notifications for breaking news, is no more.
“Thanks for using Notify,” reads the notification delivered to users this morning. “We’re transitioning parts of Notify into other Facebook products, and the app will no longer be supported.”
Notify launched just last November, and gave Facebook users handy access to breaking news from over 70 publishers. It provided short news summaries in real-time, then gave users access to complete stories if they wanted it.
The only problem is, like a lot of news services, Notify quickly lost its appeal. People stopped downloading it soon after it arrived and then totally forgot about it. According to data from SensorTower, it only saw 63,000 downloads in total!
It’s no surprise Facebook is already giving Notify the boot, then. But of course, the social network certainly isn’t giving up on news altogether.
“Starting on Wednesday, we will begin integrating Notify functionality into other Facebook products, like Messenger,” the company told TechCrunch.
“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.”
The publishers that did support Notify are now urging users to like their Facebook Pages to continue receiving notifications for the latest stories.
