Dear reader,
At The Globe we constantly work to improve the experience of our audience. A big part of this involves making it easier to access the news that matters most to you.
As part of this effort, users of our mobile and tablet apps can now customize the alerts they receive. This feature is not available for desktop notification.
Users can opt in to receive alerts on six topics of interest: Business and investing, politics, cannabis, living well, arts and culture, and real estate.
The personalization options are located in the “Alerts” section of our app (detailed instructions below). This new feature allows readers to receive alerts about topics not typically included in our regular breaking news and feature alerts.
Even though this is greater customization, it is not being fuelled by an algorithm or artificial intelligence. Decisions about the timing and content of these alerts will be made by editors across our newsroom. Our hope is that this feature will provide you with a better experience.
Like many new initiatives under way at The Globe, this is a work in progress. We plan to make improvements to our personalized alerts based on your feedback and for that reason you may notice the timing and style of alerts changing over time. We may also add topics in the future. If you have questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me at jchittley@globeandmail.com.
Readers who have turned on alerts in The Globe app but do not opt in to the new, customized categories will still receive alerts about breaking news and feature stories. For now, this feature is only available to iPhone/iOS users. We will be expanding this functionality to Android users in the near future.
How to customize your alerts:
You must have the latest version of the app installed - version 5.3.1
1. Open the app
2. Tap on ‘Alerts’ and the bell icon at the bottom of the screen
3. Tap on ‘Customize’ in the top right corner.
Don’t see the new options? This may be because notifications haven’t been turned on. Please tap ‘turn on notifications.’ This will direct you to the settings for the app. Tap ‘notifications’ and then move the white circle next to ‘Allow notifications’ so it is green.
4. Tap and slide the circles to the right of the topic for which you wish to receive alerts.
If the area next to the white circle is red, you will receive alerts on that topic.
Screen grab showing how to customize a mobile alert
We look forward to hearing from you about this new feature.