News alerts have taken over my phone.
"James Holmes formally sentenced to life plus 3,318 years," Smart News tells me.
"Labor board says franchise workers can bargain with parent company," the New York Times pings.
"It’s hip not to be square," BuzzFeed says, with an alert about Instagram’s latest update.
I work in news---and I cover the way technology affects the media industry. So, yeah, I’ve signed up for, and do get, a lot of mobile news alerts. But mixed among personal texts and tweets, I’ve noticed that these kind of alerts have not only become more common, but are changing the way I see and think about news.
On Wednesday, for example, as details around the horrific Virginia shooting unraveled, my phone kept flashing with each new development. And although I'd already read about the awful news, I continued to get alerts throughout the day. I was reminded, and updated, about the details of the attack without having made the conscious choice to do so.
Mobile pings are making news more personal. Yes, they’ve been around for a long time. And, no, they’re not yet so customized that they know what, say, I would want to read but you wouldn’t. And yet, as they increase in number, taking over the mobile homescreen space between my texts and tweets, they’re bringing the news front and center---no matter where I am or what I'm doing, when I want them to and when I don't.
And, more than ever, publishers, trying to figure out how to best bring us the news, will need to navigate between the desire to capture my attention (and yours!) without overburdening readers in the intimate world that is their phone.
For publishers, push alerts are an unprecedented way of reaching readers. News consumers no longer have to seek out news. We're bombarded on social media. We're hit with countless email newsletters. We're inundated after nearly every Google search.
The difference is that push alerts buzz, flash, and ring you to attention. They’re a way of, literally, breaking you out of what you're doing to alert you of something you may not even know you need to be alerted about. “It's like tapping the reader on the shoulder,” says the New York Times assistant masthead editor Clifford Levy.
And it seems to work---Levy says the *Times *sees a spike in traffic after it sends out its alerts. Carl Lavin, CNN's editorial director of digital news programing, says millions of users have signed up for CNN's mobile news alerts to stay informed. Even tech giants seem to have taken note. According to Business Insider, Facebook is working on a breaking news tool that involves mobile alerts.
Because while news organizations have always been in a battle for our attention, our attention has become increasingly fragmented. We can get news from pretty much anywhere---and publishers will happily oblige. But it's not always easy to know what *really *matters, or what we really need to know. Our phones have become so crucial to all of this, because that's the one place everyone agrees we're spending more of our time---and getting more of our news.
"The phone is the new battleground for the media,” Wall Street Journal chief innovation officer Edward Roussel tells me. “Controlling the homescreen of the phone is controlling the most valuable real estate in media.”
And so, publishers are cautiously experimenting with how to grab our attention without pushing us too far. While the* Times*, for example, originally sent news alerts to readers only for breaking news, Levy tells me, the company has evolved to send them for investigative features and special reports, too.
“We are being very judicious in when we choose to send alerts, but we are sending out more of them,” he says. He admits, however, that there can be a real danger with news alerts, too. “If you send too many alerts, and people start viewing them as an annoyance that is very dangerous, because then they will just shut them off. Once a reader has shut alerts off, it's very hard to get them to turn them back on," Levy adds.
At BuzzFeed, mobile news editor Laura Davis has a different approach. She writes that, when determining what stories to send alerts for, she asks: Will the reader appreciate this? "When you think about push notifications as a delivery service that feels very personal---and not just another place to share news that you’ve determined is 'breaking'---you can go outside your comfort zone," she writes in a post. (Which explains why BuzzFeed would send a notification about a change to Instagram---likely much appreciated by its audience---while the Times or Journal might not.)
Roussel says, however, as an industry, publishers still have a long way to go. “I think where we're heading is customizable alerts---where people can elect to get alerts or a particular type of alert---and that they're actionable,” he says, meaning that readers can not only choose to follow an alert to a story, but share it, dismiss it, or ask for more like it from the homescreen.
Some upstarts have already begun experimenting with offering users more options. The Breaking News app, for example, which specializes in sharing breaking news headlines, gives news junkies the chance to pick the kinds of stories they want based on ,say, topics they like or their location. "The more surprising and unexpected the story, the higher the open rate," cofounder Cory Bergman says. But what ultimately matters most, he adds, is informing users quickly with nothing more than a glance at their screen.
So, okay. Mobile push alerts are encroaching on our screens---and, for publishers, they may be a boon. But what about for readers? WIRED ones, we want to hear from you. I work in the media, and report on the media, so I'm far from the norm.
Tell us: Do you get push alerts? Do you love them, hate them, or feel, well, kind of mixed? Do you typically swipe to learn more about the story? Or do you mute them the minute you download a news app? Take our poll and comment below. You can also write to me to share your thoughts. We'll share what we hear from you.
Because, sure, it's undeniable that our phones are changing the way we interact with the world. And publishers want them to change how we interact with the news, too. Yet it remains to be seen if these notifications will work longterm---or, if most of us will mute them, and move on to something else.
