Facebook wants to help you stay on top of the news.
Facebook released Notify, a free standalone news app, on Wednesday. Media outlets you subscribe to in the app, such as CNN and Fox News, can send notifications to your iPhone's lock screen.
Tapping a notification opens an article, and the Notify app shows a digest of alerts from the past 24 hours.
Facebook isn't just including traditional news publications in Notify. The Weather Channel and Fandango, for example, can also send notifications through the app for daily forecasts and new movie ticket listings.
Rumors had been circulating for about a week that the social network was working on an app like this.
Notify is an interesting experiment from Facebook. Publishers are already sharing their stories on Facebook through its Instant Article format, which loads content faster than a typical webpage because the article is hosted on Facebook. But this new app appears to be an obvious play towards the Twitter demographic, where news is known to surface before hitting the Facebook News Feed.
A full list of the more than 70 launch partners in Notify is available on the app's website.
