Facebook now wants to be the only thing you look at on your phone

Advertisement

Facebook has gradually been adding information to its "notifications" tab to make it much more than just a place to check what photos you've been tagged in or which friends wrote on your Wall. 

Advertisement

Now, the company is ramping up those efforts with new updates to the notifications tab to make it more of a hub for all the information you might want about your friends, interests, and events happening around you. 

With this new hub, Facebook is essentially trying to wipe out the need to check your weather app, Fandango, Yelp, or any sort of news aggregator.

Complimentary Tech Event
Transform talent with learning that works
Capability development is critical for businesses who want to push the envelope of innovation.Discover how business leaders are strategizing around building talent capabilities and empowering employee transformation.Know More

For example, you can now change your notifications settings to have the tab include TV reminders, suggestions of where to eat nearby, the weather, or things that are taking place in your local community. 

Facebook will let you personalize your settings, and notifications like weather or local events will only work if you have your Location History turned on. 

Advertisement

Here's what the notifications tab might look like:

FB

Facebook

This push makes Facebook notifications much more similar to Google Now, the virtual assistant and information center that tries to serve helpful information to users like local weather and traffic conditions or trending news stories.  

For Facebook, including more information in notifications will help keep users inside the "Big Blue App" as much as possible and encourage the use of features like Places, which Facebook has been expanding over the last year

Here's are the options that Facebook will allow users to include:

Advertisement
  • Friends' milestones, like birthdays and life events
  • Sports scores and TV reminders, based on Pages you've liked
  • Upcoming events that you've joined
  • Things happening around your community, like local events and news that is popular in the city you live in
  • Weather updates, like current conditions and severe weather alerts
  • Movies playing in theaters near you
  • A list of nearby places to eat, with links to the places' Facebook Pages and reviews

Here's a little video demo of what it will look like: 

 

NOW WATCH: We asked a bunch of kids what they think about Facebook