• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 17, 2016

Google introduced support on Monday for Web messaging across a variety of browsers. The platform--Firebase Cloud Messaging--lets developers send push notifications for their applications to individual mobile devices.

The API lets developers create push notifications that allow advertisers to go beyond Chrome, sending to Firefox, Opera and others. Until now, advertisers had to send push notifications through Android and iOS apps with Firebase Cloud Messaging or through Google Cloud Messaging.

Since introducing the technology in Chrome, Google has seen more than 10 billion notifications being sent daily to Web sites, but developers wanted the save features available on native notifications, writes Pinar Ozlen, Google software engineer in a post.

Google rebranded Google Cloud Messaging to Firebase Cloud Messaging in May, turning it into a service after acquiring the brand in October 2014. Since then, reports estimate the back-end service has grown from 110,000 developers to more than 470,000.

Advertisers may not develop apps, but they should understand the possibilities of how to reach consumers. What makes a good notification? Designing notifications that are timely, precise and relevant, according to Joseph Medley, a technical writer at Google. "Don't annoy your users, or you'll lose access to them forever," he writes.

In a video Matt Gaunt, developer on Google's Firebase team, talks about how to add Firebase cloud messaging with the new software developer kit, as well as how to get a token required to send the message and show a push notification once the device receives the message.