Our friend Ronen over at BerryReview was browsing mobile.blackberry.com this morning and noticed a new link under the What's Hot section - New BlackBerry Web Signals! Rewind a few days to Day 2 of the Developer Conference, and the announcement of Web Signals was big news. Installing these services onto your BlackBerry allows for content to get pushed right to your device - saving you time and battery life (vs. checking at intervals for content in the background or pulling it up manually). I'm sure we'll see a ton of these become available in the near future, but the first six to be offered are as follows:
- NYTimes.com Bits Blog Notifier - Learn about news & analysis as it happens with NYTimes.com Bits Blog Notifier. With news & analysis on the tech industry through the day from NY Times writers & freelancers.
- Accuweather.com - Get free constantly updated forecasts pushed to your BlackBerry smartphone. View radar, 10-day & hourly forecasts & severe weather alerts.
- Reuters News Web Signals - Get breaking news with Reuters Web Signals on your BlackBerry smartphone. As news breaks, the Reuters icon changes & sends you to the story.
- FOX News Alert - Be the first to know when news breaks. Download FOX News Alert & get instant alerts to breaking news directly on your BlackBerry Smartphone.
- CBC - Receive the day's top headlines and breaking news with the innovative CBC web signal for BlackBerry smartphones
- Thumbplay Web Signal - Get content releases from Thumbplay. The Thumbplay icon sends you to BlackBerry compatible content like music, ringtones, games, videos & more.
For more info and to download, visit mobile.blackberry.com from your Berry's Browser and click into Web Signals, or just click this link.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
As a new user to the Blackberry and their push service, this is EXACTLY why I purchased a Blackberry! These push services are currently fueling my newfound addiction further!
This is great. I will be geting the www.accuweather.com web signal - :)
great, but where is it "pushed" to? I subscribed to the Accuweather, filled out my zip... now what? it's been about 24 hours, nothing has been pushed to me. Am I looking for a icon on the home screen or what?
I'm not sure about this either. Someone help please.
The Reuters one worked for me, but yeah, I've got the same issue with Accuweather.
Power Off and Power On. The icon will be the first in your list of apps.
I don't get it either. I read the notes from the conference and it states this thing is supposed to push content right onto the front screen of the Blackberry but I don't see anything anywhere after subscribing.
mine came up the next morning when I had subscribed to it the night before. Also, make sure you have browser push enabled...go to Options>Advanced Options>Browser Push and make sure the Enable Push is checked.
PS: you should see icons on your screen; depending on what you have subscribed to.
I am with you guys. I subscribed to the NY Times, but nothing changed. I have push enabled, but nothing has happened. I don't even see an icon. What are we missing?
I subscribed to accuweather and fox news. Fox news said to allow 24 hrs for icon to appear. However I got it in a few minutes. But, so far have not gotten anything for accuweather.
Could we see this for google reader soon?
So what exactly do these things do? They replace one of your home screen icons or something? I'm interested in the Fox News and Accuweather, but would like to know exactly how they work before downloading any of them.
They must be monitoring the site, because suddenly it showed-up after I complained. Let's see if that works for Kevin's Storm review too. It's 1:30 p.m., Where is it? I am dying to read it.
Not sure if this takes a while or what the deal is but I've downloaded three now and none of them have showed up on my BB, did a restart and a power cycle. Weird.
I only tried the accuweather and I see nothing on my BB. I tried to reboot as well. I guess I'll play the waiting game.
SO I am thinking maybe it will not work if you have the beta 4.5 on your phone???
i opened up IM+ this morning and they have a push service for IM's. All my IM's now go to my inbox... saves battery life for sure. Sweet.
I keep getting an error when I try to sign up for the Fox News Alert
Maybe it's because you are a closet democrat! lol...
Both my Fox News and Accuweather Icons showed up with in the hour. They are icons on the home screen and when there is breaking news you get a visual notification so you can then open them up.
When I run my cursor over the icon on the home screen it say;s "H57 L39, Intermittent Clouds" where the App title would normally be. That's very cool!
Is there a page in crackberry that shows all the services that can be pushed to the blackberry?
Signed up for accuweather, guess I am playing the waiting game also.
I subscribed to Accuweather and I got an icon in my homescreen right away!! It ia a really nice app and it doesn't take up memory.
I click on the subscribe link and keep getting "HTTP Error 400: Bad Request. The server could not understand the page request or was unable to process it for some reason. Please try loading a different page."
I'm using an ATT Pearl 8120 with OS v4.3.0.91
Any ideas?
I was hoping it would actually PUSH the content to the phone. it just lets you know that a site was updated. Not what I was hoping for at all.
I subscribed to Accuweather and Fox News. Got Fox News within an hour, but hours later (since early this morning), nothing from Accuweather. What gives? Additionally, I see no way to unsubscribe from Fox News. I don't like it and don't want it, but I can't get rid of it. Argh...
When I try and go to the Push Services site, there is no option to unsubscribe from either Accuweather or Fox News. Also, when I try and subscribe again to Accuweather, I am redirected to a page that says I have to accept the agreement... even though I was clicking on "I Accept."
Something is very wrong, and this doesn't seem to be turning out so good.
Yeah pretty crappy launch for these web signals thingy...
Okay, did a little browsing, and a little experimenting, and this is what I have come up with to unsubscribe. On your phone, browse to:
http://push.na.blackberry.com/mss/PM_subList
From there, you will see a list of your current Web Signals subscriptions. Unfortunately, the list is made up of descriptions (long ones), and not easy-to-decipher titles, but nevertheless, click the box next to the subscriptions you want to cancel, and click on Unsubscribe at the bottom of the page.
Done.
Phew... now, I guess I just need to wait for Accuweather to activate so I can try it out.
This basically puts a link to the companies website on your Blackberry. A glorified shortcut. The only benefit is it lets you know if there is new content on the site.
I do not see the advantage of this over Viigo or similar. Anyone?
is there a cost the accu weather?
How similar is this to the Live Ticker that AT&T/Cingular introduced a couple years ago?
Don't know what the problem is, but still no Accuweather. What a mess.
Having problems too. When I enter in my email addy for the fox news subscription, I get a "Failed to connect" page that pops up. Also same thing with the accu weather. I'll try again in a bit.
NM
I keep getting the HTTP 504 Error: Gateway Timeout when trying to subscribe to AccuWeather. I think my IT policy is trying to block something.
I subscribed to cbc and reuters and trying to get accuweather but keeps prompting me to accept the already accepted terms/cond ?
Still waiting ... something wrong with these signals
I subscribed to NY Times, Reuters, & AccuWeather yesterday. I got an icon for Reuters which is supposed to change and send news updates to my phone...nothing. Also, nothing from NY Times or AccuWeather. What gives?
Haha ...I don't think these things work back to the drawing board for the developers.
WTF..it puts an icon on your homescreen, and whenever news does get updated, it puts a star over the icon, but when you click on it, you have to wait for the webpage to open? That’s retarded.
At least if I sign up for email alerts from these sites that are listed (and those that are not, such as CNN or ESPN), an email comes to me with a preview of what the “breaking news†is and gives a short description of it, then i have the ability to click the link to visit the webpage.
Whoever came up with the idea for these in their current state (if this is all they really plan to do with the applications) needs to be fired and their position at RIM given to me.
The accuweather push rocks! I did it last night and this morning the little icon with the high/low and forecast for the day is displayed when you highlight the icon. Click it and you are taken to the website.
I could not install foxnews or Reuters. I have a pearl on verizon.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how to remove/uninstall the FoxNews icon from my phone!! It is NOT in my application list. I have a Sprint 8330.
I've got two issues with this. I installed FoxNews, but when I select the icon the browser gives me a communication failure. At this point I don't want to put in the time to trouble shoot, I just want it off of my phone. So i tried the link to see my application list and of course there's nothing in there. How do I get this crap off of my phone?
Anyone?? Bueler?
Do we not have to pay for this service?