Push Notifications - Did we give up?

[fixer]

for a while forum owners were really hammering for Push Notifications , third parties started popping up and plugins were being created... it was happening!

now nobody cares? WHAT HAPPENED? did we just claim defeat?

are first party devs racing to put out the functionality first?

 

[zappaDPJ]

I think that boat's already sailed. Technology moves quickly and I don't believe forum development can keep up. If you compare the forum software of today to what was available 15 years ago there's actually really been very little change.

 

[MarkFL]

Personally, I don't find them particularly useful but they can be annoying. I'm sure I'm in the minority though. I'm just an old dude on a PC.

 

[mysiteguy]

Been using push notifications non-stop on my forums for quite some time.

 

[LeadCrow]

While push notifications can technically increase user engagement, they are also annoying for users when received too frequent.

Theyre easier to justify for social networks with multiple alert types for the same identity, unlike with forums since notifications dont get throttled per-site if youre active on multiple forums.

 

[Nev_Dull]

I'm firmly in the "push notifications are annoying" camp. They are great in business and perhaps useful in social media but for a forum, I prefer to come to the content on my own. (And my members seem to agree.)

 

[haqzore]

It's important to realize nearly all push notifications can be disabled, if not specifically customized for types you want to receive.

As with most things, I think it's important to give users a choice and let them decide rather than saying no simply because you personally don't feel like spending a few seconds to disable them.

 

[Ryan Ashbrook]

for a while forum owners were really hammering for Push Notifications , third parties started popping up and plugins were being created... it was happening!

now nobody cares? WHAT HAPPENED? did we just claim defeat?

are first party devs racing to put out the functionality first?

From a development perspective, true push notifications are actually quite difficult to do in distributed web software. Each service is different, so different implementations are needed. Additionally, some services require very specific requirements for the site itself before it can be implemented. For instance, Apple requires a developer account for the site (not the vendor), a web service backend specifically programmed and designed for Safari, and a special certificate installed on the server that must be generated and registered by Apple. And that's just one service - Microsoft, Google, etc. all have their own individual requirements.

For individual websites with a dedicated development team and specific server specifications, all of this is relatively straight-forward. With bundled, pre-built software, it becomes complicated relatively quickly.

 

[Alpha1]

Its just as important as email in regards to user engagement. IMHO its a must have.

 

[haqzore]

Its just as important as email in regards to user engagement. IMHO its a must have.

Agree it's a must have to stay competitive.

 

[mysiteguy]

I'm firmly in the "push notifications are annoying" camp. They are great in business and perhaps useful in social media but for a forum, I prefer to come to the content on my own. (And my members seem to agree.)

That's why they can select "No" when asked if they want push notifications. And when they get one, they can opt to turn them off.

 

[fixer]

i need push because my group leaders want to be able to ping all their members at once in the event of emergency or remind them of training events etc.

the group leaders need this power over the group members or the groups lack merit

 

[Mouth]

From a development perspective, true push notifications are actually quite difficult to do in distributed web software.

Not if you partner with someone providing that ability. It wouldn't be hard for community forum software to natively integrate with a partner like OneSignal, and then allow admins to activate the device services as required/available.

 

[Alpha1]

There are free and paid PUSH providers that can be integrated with platforms.
https://www.pubnub.com/products/mobile-push-notifications/
https://pushbots.com/
https://pusher.com/beams
https://www.urbanairship.com/
And 10 more here: http://www.buzinga.com.au/buzz/comparison-of-10-push-notifications-services/

it seems to me that PUSH providers are as plenty as there are email providers, payment providers, antispam services, WAF providers, CDN providers, etc. IMHO serious community software would optimally support several of each so that the admin can pick and choose.

 

[Nev_Dull]

I'm curious about this. In my experience, most users visit their chosen forums regularly, be it once a day or several times a day. They tend to check first on threads they have participated in and then look for others of interest. For the most part, they don't seem to like getting email notifications every time a thread it updated, so I wonder if users really care about getting push notifications.

So my question is, does anyone have some real data that shows push notifications have value on forums in general, and what that value is?

 

[Joeychgo]

Personally, I don't find them particularly useful but they can be annoying. I'm sure I'm in the minority though. I'm just an old dude on a PC.

I find them helpful myself

 

[fixer]

i love them when its something i care about, not a fan when its just telling me i have a chest to open on a game, just too lazy to turn off the ones i dont want i guess

 

[zappaDPJ]

So my question is, does anyone have some real data that shows push notifications have value on forums in general, and what that value is?

I don't have any data to share but I can give you one example of how much value I put on it. I used to rent out servers, primarily for gaming and comms. I used push notification to resolve any out of hours or other emergency issues that occurred. In financial terms that earned my company a huge amount of extra income because savings made on staffing.

I've also used it to instantly manually authorise new users on commercial forums that operate strong anti-spam measures.

As an admin I find it invaluable. As a user probably less so but I would still very much like the option to be notified if there are replies to some of the threads I've posted in.

I'm probably being naive but I don't understand why this presents such a problem. Why don't forum developers simply develop a Tapatalk style app for their product. Why does this have to be browser related? That seem to defeat the object of push notification which is simply to poke you when you get new mail, new texts, new content etc.

 

[Nev_Dull]

As an admin I find it invaluable. As a user probably less so but I would still very much like the option to be notified if there are replies to some of the threads I've posted in.

I definitely see the value of push notifications from the admin side and if it was implemented primarily for that purpose, I'd be all for it. You say you like being notified about replies as a user. Do notifications make you visit the site more often? How do you feel about email notifications?

 

[zappaDPJ]

You say you like being notified about replies as a user. Do notifications make you visit the site more often? How do you feel about email notifications?

Notifications definitely increase the frequency that I'll visit a forum but I'm not sure that necessarily equates to spending more time. One thing I can say for sure is that installing Tapatalk increased the activity levels on all my forums by a significant amount. When I removed it, activity levels dropped to below their previous levels but there may well have been other factors involved.

Email notifications don't really work for me. I get too much spam to too keep a viewer open so I tend to download them once or twice a day at most.