Facebook launching a standalone news app called “Notify”

Facebook Inc is rolling out a standalone news app called Notify next week, according to a report by the Financial Times citing people familiar with the matter.

The app will feature stories from a number of Facebook’s media partners such as CBS, the Washington Post and Vogue.

The move follows positive feedback from publishers and readers to Facebook’s recently implemented “Instant Articles” feature which displays news articles in the Facebook mobile app.

The “Instant Articles” service was made available to all iPhone users two weeks ago.

However, unlike the Instant Articles feature, Notify will be its very own standalone app – separate from the Facebook app.

The news app will compete directly with Twitter’s new service called Moments which was created to offer curated content to help users keep up to date with live events, as well as Flipboard, Inside, Yahoo News Digest, Google News, Apple News, and Snapchat’s Discover.

Facebook declined to comment.