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Facebook is preparing to launch a new standalone news app called Notify next week, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the plans.
The app will feature content from dozens of media partners including Vogue, the Washington Post and CBS, the newspaper said.
Facebook had earlier tied up with nine news publishers to launch “Instant Articles”, which publishes their content directly to the social network’s mobile news feeds.
The company’s new app will compete with Twitter’s recently launched service called Moments, which aims to provide a better way of curating and aggregating content for users and help them follow live events.
Facebook was not immediately available to comment.
The social networking giant was previously reported to launch the Notify news app at the end of October by The Awl.
At the time, the Notify news app was reportedly to allow users to aggregate their favourite content into real-time notifications. Partnering publications were said to have the ability to create specific notifications for the mobile platform on behalf of Facebook, like a mega-tweet. Then users will be directed to the publication’s website via the notification.
Facebook seeks to expand its functionalities to something much more than just a social network – the most popular one in the world if it makes any difference. The app will allow users to subscribe to certain organisations dubbed as stations and they will then receive notifications during the day, every time one of the stations they have subscribed to promotes a new story.
That will obviously give a big boost on Facebook’s presence as a multi-functioning platform, rather than just a simple social network.