It's to provide another visual notification for when the system needs a little human attention to address a particular anomaly it's detected — so an alternative notification medium for users who might not want to be nagged by too many notifications on their phone, say.
We've reached out to Google for confirmation that it has removed its censorship notification feature for users in China, and — if it has self-censored in this instance — to ask for its reasons for doing so.
Last year, Apple also added a notification for the user when the battery gets to a really rough state, but it's pretty conservative about that, so it will likely not trigger until well after iOS feels it should start capping the max power draw from batteries.
Notifications — Yes, you can now get Push Notifications for specific users' tweets on your device.
There are also ambient notifications for iOS users that post brief, "non-interruptive" notifications in the status bar when the app is open.
The chat windows make it easier to send rapid-fire comments, which will trigger notifications for other users on the thread, luring them to engage.
That allows it to support push notifications for when users get new emails, as well as to enable email snoozing — which is really its killer application.
For ModCloth, that's a challenge that may have to be addressed with strategic use of push notifications for app users, making sure to alert a shopper before a limited-quantity item sells out, for instance.
However, the number of abnormal situations is usually large, and delivering all of the associated notifications is overwhelming for users, rather than helping them to interpret the ongoing status of the environment.
Adding push notifications is good for users, but it's even better for Vine artists who have a much more effective method for ensuring that their content is seen by as many viewers as possible.
