Facebook Takes Over Your Lock Screen With Its New App, Notify

Facebook is launching a new app. Notify, which showed up in the iTunes store today, is designed as a one-stop notifications center that will keep users updated on everything from weather forecasts to sports scores to celebrity news, courtesy of selected media partners.

Notify relies on partnerships similar to those of Snapchat’s with their media partners, putting Facebook in competition with breaking news notifications from newspapers, magazines, and websites.

In a blog post, product manager Julian Gutman writes:

You’ll receive notifications, delivered right to your lock screen, and a quick glance will keep you connected to the things that you care about throughout the day. If you want to see more, just swipe or tap through any Notify notification to open the link in the app’s browser where you can read the full article, watch the video, or view the site.

Initial partners for the Notify app include Fox Sports, Fox News, the Weather Channel, Thrillist, the New York Times, Fandango, CNN, and Getty Images. It’s worth noting that many of these partners already have mobile apps of their own that send push notifications to users. Facebook’s app largely replicates that functionality, with the exception that it funnels users into Facebook’s ecosystem.

The launch of Facebook Notify comes during a period when the social network has notably increased their efforts to locally host news and entertainment content; their content effort, Facebook Instant Articles, debuted earlier this year.