Ready Or Not, Google Is Set To Push

Push, as in Push notifications. If you are at least a little bit familiar with online technology and follow along with the supposed latest and greatest trends you may have seen something in the press lately about push notifications.

No matter if you haven’t. Here is a quick and easy to understand definition. A push notification is an automated tool that lets a user know of new events or new messages. However a push notification is unique because the push notification happens whether you have the application open or not.

For example, when you get a beep or a buzz on your Android or iOS phone even when you don’t have the email app open, that is an example of a push notification. In other words, even though you did not happen to be actively checking your email at the time, the email app sent you an alert that something new just showed up in your In Box. See how that works?

What’s new in the world of push notifications? Think Google, more specifically the Google Chrome Browser. This is showing up in the latest version of Chrome which is labeled version 42. This latest version of Chrome is the first browser to attempt to bridge the world between mobile apps and desktop web searches.

One pervasive issue with mobile apps is the undisputed fact that quite a few consumers balk and simply say “never mind” when asked to install an App. Consider, there are the permission and installation steps to go through. For example, even now there are some who outright refuse to install an app as popular as Facebook. What with the lengthy list of permissions that have to be individually checked off and approved it’s actually a wonder that anyone installs the app at all.

However, the reality is that consumers often do want notifications and alerts. Recognizing this unmet need and seeing the issues from the App world, the team at Google went to work to bring notifications to the desktop environment. You see, people are much more likely to type in a URL and inspect a website than they will download and install an app.

The latest version of Chrome now brings this to the desktop. For sites that have setup notifications, there is a simple prompt that asks the web site visitor to allow notifications. After that, that user does not have to even come back to the site to keep track of what is going on. As you might well expect, Facebook has already signed up and is expected to roll this out very soon.

Bottom line is this: Google is bringing the convenience of mobile app notifications right to your desktop.