Web Push notifications a browser based gimmick for marketing

This is my first Steemit post and here i will be explaining about front end of web push notifications.

Theoretically a web push notification is a service provided by browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera etc through which websites can deliver messages, alerts, promotional content and notification to the subscribed browsers.

How one's browser can get subscribed, the process i have explained below. Before that i would like to describe a brief history of push notification service.

Urban Airship is an app based push notification service through their blogs i could get some data about the history of push notification so it all started in 2009 with Apple starting APNs - Apple Push Notification service, the first push service. Later in 2010 Google started its own push service and in 2013 it improved the existing service by introducing a feature called "rich notification" so that advertisement banners can be added to push notification itself. In 2014 Apple went further ahead and introduced interactive buttons in the push notifications. Since then every major browser except Microsoft's Edge supports this service.

Let us see practically how this would look like. If i visit any particular website and after some times gets a pop-up message that reads -

"This website would like to show notification, would you like this website to show notifications to you click on Allow or Not now, Deny or Block ."

And If i click on Allow button my browser is automatically subscribed to this website and now this website can send as many notification as it wishes to, these notifications will be delivered to my browser.

The image below shows a native browser subscription pop - up.

This image shows a customized template subscription pop-up.

Typically a chrome push notification with banner would appear as follow

For the companies its a boon a one click subscription and they can and will send as many messages as they want and at any time of the day.

In here there are various limitation as to which the sender companies have to adhere to these are as follows -

Messages are usually short as there is no provision of sending long messages. There can be only one or two images and permitted links and nothing more.

User can easily UNSUBSCRIBE by opening their browser's setting - content settings - notification - remove the website's link from which you would not like to receive any notification.

Since this technology is relatively new and complex its difficult for a small to medium size company and even large companies to code and create a software to time things accurately and therefore there are many third party services that have come up and many will be popping up on a daily basis as the market of this relatively new technology is enormous.

This technology is way ahead then its peers or contemporaries and its advantages are as follow -

The user does not have to fill in any personal details in order to subscribe to any website no phone number, e-mail and names etc

These messages does not consume any space on the system and can easily go away.

Click rate is very high in comparison to e-mail or sms marketing almost 10X and there is a good chance of a user clicking the message or the notification.

The only question that's needed to be asked before taking up any third party services for push notification for blog, e-commerce or B2B platform is about Branding, that which paid plan does not include your branding.

Plans will usually have two criteria - Number of unique visitors or Number of subscribers. In addition to push notification there may be additional services that might be also included in the package that might suit your needs. Choose them wisely or better ask for customization and pay wisely.

Here i have listed few web push notification services that i came across there may be many more coming up on almost daily basis but these are the major ones and have been in operation for a very long period of time -

Monthly visitors - M = 1000000, K= 1000

send pulse - 12 M

pushcrew 9.6 M

one signal 8.8 M down to 3M

foxpush - 3.1 M

Izooto - 2.3 M

mix-panel - 1.9M

pusher - .36 M

boomtrain - .338M

wigzo - .25 M

webengage .24 M

moengage - 248 k

pushalert.co - 229k

clever tap - 185.7K

emarsys - 221.3k

finebird - 150 k

nvpush or notify visitors - 129 k

gsecondscreen.com - 76 k

accengage.com - france - 45K

firepush.io - 56k

vizury -32.3k

netcore - 28k

mgage- 25k

pushwoosh 16.4 k

Feedify -12 k

yfret.com - 8K

pushad - 5 k

tango targeting - 2K

borndigital.in - NA

The market is so huge and the competition so stiff that one could find at least 7-8 companies advertising and spending huge amount on google adds. This can be clearly seen when you perform a google search for "push notification" you'll find that most part of the screen is filled with links that have Ad written below the recommended links, Implies the fact that these companies are bidding for advertisements to come up first on the first page or to stay at the top and ahead in the market.