Facebook takes on Google Now with expanded notifications tab
Today, Facebook is starting to roll out a completely new notifications tab for the Facebook mobile app. The redesigned tab includes a bunch of new information along with the standard Facebook notifications. The best way to describe this new interface is to look at the Google app. It’s information that you need, without having to explicitly ask for it.
When you open the new tab you’ll see the standard notifications at the top as per usual, but also shows the date a current weather. Underneath the notifications is where things get interesting. You’ll now see things like birthdays and life events from your friends, sports scores and TV reminders based on your likes, and upcoming events. You’ll also be able to add content by enabling Location History. Things like events in your community, weather updates, movies playing nearby, and more.
If all of this sounds very Google Now-like you’re absolutely right. Everyone is trying to provide information to users before they ask for it. Google was the first to do this, and now even Apple and Facebook are jumping on board. The big question with Facebook’s implementation is will anyone notice or care? Are you suddenly going to feel the need to scroll down farther in your notifications? Or is this another reason to uninstall the app?