Facebook Discontinues Notify News App

Facebook Inc FB is shutting down its Notify news app and integrating its features into other products like Messenger, according to TechCrunch. http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/02/nopify/ TechCrunch said Facebook sent the following message to users: "Thanks for using Notify. We're transitioning parts of Notify into other Facebook products, and the app will no longer be supported." Facebook launched Notify in November, allowing users to select from over 70 publishers that they wanted to send them news notifications. People would receive short summaries and they could click through to view full news articles. "But within days, it seemed like most people had forgotten about the app, and Facebook never really talked about it again," the report said. The report, citing SensorTower, said Notify only had 63,000 downloads. The coolest feature of Notify was its control given users to select their own sub-topics. For instance, rather than getting the Bloomberg financial news, you could just configure Notify to tell you about certain companies. "This level of control is hopefully what Facebook will port over to other products," the report noted. The report added that with Facebook saying more than 10,000 developers are working on chatbots for Messenger, "a more organized discovery tool could come in handy."