Social network Facebook is expanding its notifications centre to include smart and customisable reminders. The tab will keep all event and personal information together.
"Every day, people use their notifications to keep up-to-date with their friends and family. We've heard feedback that people wanted to add important information that they can easily see, all in one place," said Keith Peiris, Facebook product manager, in a blog post.
Along with the usual notifications, users will be able to see and customise timely info, including friends' birthdays and life events, sports scores and TV reminders (based on pages liked), and upcoming events.
Users have the option to add additional notifications, if location history is enabled in the Facebook app, such as:
* Things happening in the community, such as local events and news popular in the city the user is currently in.
* Weather updates, including current conditions and severe weather alerts.
* Movies playing in theatres nearby.
* A list of nearby places to eat, with links to the restaurants' Facebook pages and reviews.
These new personalised options will gradually roll out to Facebook for Android and iPhone in the US, with other regions to follow.
In August, Facebook started testing a personal digital assistant called "M" within its Messenger service that can answer questions with live human help and perform tasks such as buying gifts online and booking restaurants.
Closing in on competition
Facebook has launched a number of features in the last month that encroach on space traditionally held by Google entities.
The new notifications and reminders are Facebook's take on Google Now. Google Now attempts to provide users with information to help them make decisions and plan their lives. The app gathers data from the user, such as calendar entries or Web searches, to predict what information will be useful - and then sends them pre-emptive notifications.
Last week, the social network launched an internal search engine, allowing users to search through all public posts on the site. This is in direct competition with Google Search, but provides more personal search results for the user - as it promotes results from the user's friends and groups.
Facebook has also started experimenting with its main app to make video more prominent while incorporating similar features from video rival, YouTube.
In South Africa, Facebook has grown its user base by 8% in the past year, from 12 million to 13 million, according to the SA Social Media Landscape Report 2015.
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