Will website push notifications actually result in lesser spam?

[Anand Kansal]

Hello everybody,

I wanted to post this here and start a discussion in this group around website push notifications and if they can result in more targeted, relevant communication and marketing efforts.

Disclosure: We've just launched a tool, PushCrew, that enables websites to send push notifications. It's very new and we want to take feedback from knowledgeable folks in this group on how they see this technology take hold in the online space.

In course of some of our interations on various social media platforms and our discussions with our customers, we've seen this concern expressed quite often on how will the end-users react to this technology. Since website push notifications appear directly on their desktop/mobile/tablet device in real time, there is this worry that users will quickly get irritated of overdone, spammy push notifications.

However, there is another school of thought that says that website push notifcations may actually result in lesser spam since this is a totally opt-in communication channel (no website can send you push notifications unless you specifically give them permission). Also, a lot of websites will increasingly give users the option to control the frequency of push notifications.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think marketing spam will increase with website push notifications? Or are you of the opinion that this will actually result in more targeted marketing communications?

Would love to have everyone's thoughts on this.

Anand Kansal

[Lynn Terry]

The answer is both. But the market will determine the direction of it, based on the content they most want to receive. The only problem I see with it, because it's a great idea, is the fact that the majority of web users are reading content via tablets and mobile devices now - vs desktop.

[Anand Kansal]

The answer is both. But the market will determine the direction of it, based on the content they most want to receive. The only problem I see with it, because it's a great idea, is the fact that the majority of web users are reading content via tablets and mobile devices now - vs desktop.

Hi Lynn,

Web push notifications work on all three major devices - desktops, mobile and tablets. They are connected to the browser rather than the device. For example, they will work on Chrome browser even if the browser is being accessed on a mobile/tablet device.