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Facebook is making an app that will send breaking news alerts to your phone

Facebook is making an app that will send breaking news alerts to your phone

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Facebook continues to carve out a space in the news game, and now the company is building a mobile app that will send breaking news alerts straight to your phone, Business Insider reports.

The stand-alone app is still in the early stages, but it will reportedly ask users to choose which publications they want to receive notifications from, and specific topics or "stations" they want to receive news about. Then, when news in those preselected topics breaks, the publications can send a push notification of up to 100 characters to users. All notifications sent through Facebook's app will link out to that publication's website. Only a select number of publications will be available on the app, according to Business Insider.

Only a select number of publications will partner with Facebook

Facebook keeps growing as a news source, so it makes sense it would somehow try to capitalize on that, even if this app sounds like it's not much more than a medium for publications to funnel their content through. Just last week Twitter began testing a breaking news tab in its iOS and Android apps, and soon it will release the events and news-focused Project Lightning.

A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment on the rumors.

The app is still in "alpha" testing, Business Insider reports, and there's no word on when it will be released to the public or what it will be called.

Updated, August 11th, 3:59PM ET: Updated to add Facebook's response to the report.