Notifications go beyond the concept of a tab on a browser. Just because I’m not CURRENTLY browsing a specific page on a specific site doesn’t mean I’m not interested in certain events or things happening ON that site. An RSS feed reader is one way we’re able to aggregate information on different sites and be notified all at once… but what if you want to create or consume a more intimate experience.
Features like Google Desktop Notifier, Google Calendar and other official gApps and extensions are able to run in the background. This means that even if their tabs aren’t open they can still ping Google’s servers, collect vital information, and inform you that there’s something you may want to look at via popup notification or other visual means.
Now developers can take advantage of this as well and users downloading your app/extension will be informed that your download uses the “background” feature… so don’t try to be sneaky. Instead, put it to good use!
I don’t see a ton of developers who will build ridiculously thorough apps and extensions that leverage all these great new features until two things happen:
- Chrome becomes the market share leader for browsers
- More people start utilizing Chrome apps/extensions
The tough part here is that until there are more apps/extenions, people won’t use them and market share won’t increase as quickly! If you know of any cool apps/extensions that use this feature please send them our way so we can share them with ChromeSpot readers. Or leave a comment!
[Via Google]
