It has long been a problem for mobile websites to engage users with the same effectiveness as a mobile app. One of the biggest issues is the lack of native notifications. While there are certain services that do allow web developers to push out notifications in some way such as Roost, or Microsoft’s live tile functionality for websites, browser notifications would noticeably improve the experience for mobile users without having to do anything extra like download an extra app or pin a website.
Now, visiting m.facebook.com via Google Chrome on mobile will give you native notifications. Google and Facebook worked together to bring the functionality to the mobile website, which ensures that those who don’t want to download the mobile app for reasons like conserving mobile data can still get notifications.
Push notifications via mobile web could compete with native apps
It’s not without its flaws, however. According to TechCrunch, the notifications are showing up multiple times, which can get irritating. The companies are working on devising a way to limit the exposure of these notifications, such as detecting a user’s “preferred interface” and pushing the notifications only to that location.
Push notifications via mobile websites could compete in some ways with native mobile apps. However, like native apps, there are likely to be issues going across multiple platforms that will have to be weeded out as development progresses.