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Facebook Reportedly Making App to Deliver Breaking News Alerts

Facebook Reportedly Making App to Deliver Breaking News Alerts

By NDTV Correspondent | Updated: 24 August 2015 09:57 IST

Facebook is said to be building a Twitter-like mobile app that will send breaking news alerts straight to your phone.

The app, which is said to be part of the Facebook for Business initiative but separate from Facebook at Work, will reportedly ask users to choose which publications or 'stations' they want to receive notifications from as well as the specific topics or 'substations' they want to receive news about, Business Insider reports.

The social networking giant is said to have a few launch partners already in place. The breaking news app is reportedly currently in alpha testing. The user would get an instant notification of up to 100 characters whenever news in their pre-selected topics breaks.

All notifications sent through Facebook's app will link out to that publication's website. Business Insider cites a person "playing around with the Facebook Business platform" as the source of its information, and also claims to have received screenshots of the product.

Facebook already took a major step to enter the news sphere earlier this year, with the unveiling of Facebook Instant Articles - a service that lets major news outlets publish articles directly on the social network. Under the new programme, publishers will get to keep 100 percent of revenue brought in from ads that they sell and 70 percent if Facebook sells the ad.

Recently, Twitter began testing a breaking news tab in its phone app, and soon it will release the events and news-focused Project Lightning.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Centre found that an increasing number of people in the US are turning to Twitter and Facebook for their daily dose of news and other information. The survey found that users turn to each of these prominent social networks to fulfil different types of information needs.

Majority of users (63 percent) now see Twitter and Facebook as a source for news about events and issues outside the realm of friends and family. That share has increased substantially from 2013, when about half of users (52 percent of Twitter users, 47 percent of Facebook users) said they get news from the social platforms.

Written with inputs from IANS

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