Push Notifications for mobile apps

I am trying to get my mind around "push notifications" used in mobile apps. I have done some research on SMS marketing and now onto Push Notifications. It was sounding like Push Notifications was going to be free as compared to SMS being quite expensive.

Now after going through the App Code by Amish Shaw and some additional research, I am finding that Push notifications are not free but, apparently much more reasonable than SMS. It also appears that you have to have some service provider and that these providers seem to be in a constant flux with one service provider buying out another and so forth while striving to become the next standard like VHS won over Beta back in the day.

Can any techie please explain how this push notification system work? And is there a way where I could offer push notifications through my own servers?

Tnx mch,
DW

Google C2DM, it's google's push notification api. It's what all the services that charge 500 dollars a month use and it's free. There's a cap of 250,000 pushes a day, but you just need to make a request to get the cap lifted.

If you want rich push notifications like banner ads, html etc, just integrate it serverside.

What exactly are you trying to do?

Push notifications are a service Apple offers for iOS developers. It allows them to send notifications from their server to a user. For example, when you receive a chat message on Facebook, Facebook will send a push notification to your iPhone and it will appear (almost like an SMS). It's a great tool to draw users into your application. It CANNOT be used for marketing as this is against the ToS and you will get banned. Foursquare can offer content that appears to be an ad with Push Notifications (like "[cafe name] is selling $1 coffees for today only") because it is in the nature of the application. A developer can't suddenly start sending out notifications saying, "Buy my other app, [app name]".

I should make it clear, only the developer can control the push notifications from their application. It is not like a free SMS service where you can send it to any device. They have to have downloaded your app and allowed notifications from it.

Did that help?

I am talking about APP HUB (Developer for Windows Phone & Xbox 360).
I have access and would like to share it. If you like to try / test it for free, PM me. You can also submit apps and games via my account.

Attached and shown below is email proof that I already have an account there, so that it saves us both some time and increase my trust by a little.


Rgds.

I can explain how push works for Android.

1) A client need to install application/service on his phone
2) This app/service will connect to remote server to get advertisement (text with link). This can be done on interval basis, or on demand
3) Than the app put this text in "notification ares" in Android phone. Kind of a windows pc tray area.
4) User touches notification -> browser opens with link that was associated with the text.