Browser notifications

Destry · 2016-03-17 07:57:09

Anyone using these? (In this case for Safari.)

I’ve been seeing more and more of them lately as I visit websites, and especially news media sites, or anywhere there’s a regular publishing agenda and readership. So far I’ve always just declined to accept the notifications but I’m getting more curious about them. How can they be useful for publishers? Or otherwise any website?

It seems they could be abused, become a dark pattern, if devs didn’t use them responsibly, but the dev guidelines do account for this, so I’m curious about use cases.

Here’s an example of what I’m seeing. I don’t accept them so I don’t know what happens afterward, but that’s what I’m trying to figure… How could publishers use them in respectable ways. In other words, what kinds of notifications, and why?

colak · 2016-03-17 08:50:03

I get those messages a lot recently. I guess it’s good for marketing but I never click the ‘allow’ button – even from sites that I trust and visit regularly.

Bloke · 2016-03-17 09:23:21

Push notifications and their associated API allow service / content providers to ping people who’ve opted in that something new has been published, which may be of interest.

The notification shows up on your desktop (Windows tray, OSX notification area, etc) whether the browser is running or not. Clicking the notification usually opens the browser and displays the content. Handy for news sites, as you say. But I guess if you ping people too often they’ll opt out of your notifications, so it’s a bit like email newsletters: use sparingly.

dos · 2016-03-17 09:27:43

I think it makes sense for some web services. Especially for web apps like Slack or Basecamp. That adds real value and makes them feel more like a native desktop app. For news sites it’s mostly annoying, I think.

Destry · 2016-03-17 10:05:11

dos wrote #298342:

I think it makes sense for some web services.

Yeah, definitely. That’s how I understand them. But in this case I’m interested in the website aspect.

Bloke wrote #298341:

to ping people who’ve opted in that something new has been published … Handy for news sites, as you say. But I guess if you ping people too often they’ll opt out of your notifications, so it’s a bit like email newsletters: use sparingly.

Okay, good, this gets to my next question… So in a way, they could be used as a kind of RSS replacement (which, sadly, seems to be a fading trend); not in the sense of how they technically work, but in terms of letting readers know something new has been published, like a new article in the Articles stream. Something like that?

And I’d hope you could edit those initial pop-down invites (as shown in head post) to make them more personal and explanatory. I think the wording on those isn’t very inviting — makes people wary.

Bloke · 2016-03-17 10:14:34

Destry wrote #298343:

in a way, they could be used as a kind of RSS replacement

Yes. The only difference is that RSS required your reader app to be running to notify you.

And I’d hope you could edit those initial pop-down invite

I think that’s a standard browser dialog that content providers can’t influence. Not even sure if you can inject your own explanatory text in addition to the scary message the browser gives out.

Destry · 2016-03-17 10:14:48

I could see textpattern.com using something like that, for example, as a way to notify followers of new dev blog posts. Since they don’t go out often, it would be a good way to help bring notice to posts when they do.

I’d consider this for CSF too for the same reason. Our posts are infrequent, so the notice would be infrequent in relation.

Destry · 2016-03-17 10:18:37

Bloke wrote #298344:

I think that’s a standard browser dialog that content providers can’t influence. Not even sure if you can inject your own explanatory text in addition to the scary message the browser gives out.

In that case it would be reasonable to have some explanatory copy in the site itself somewhere to explain it all and assuage any concerns. I’m starting to like this idea.

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#1 2016-03-17 07:57:09