Sina today announced an update that, while minor, is sure to be a welcome change to anyone who uses a lot of apps on its Sina Weibo microblogging service. Prior to now, official Sina notifications and Weibo app notifications came in under the same name, and there was no way to opt out. Now, Sina says, app notifications will be clearly labeled as such, and users will be able to choose whether or not they want to receive future notifications from any apps they use. It doesn’t appear that users will be able to block Sina’s official system notifications, though.
The new options are accessible via the “block notifications” section on the account settings page, which displays all the apps a user subscribes to visually and allows them to block whichever apps they choose with a simple click. In the screenshot below, for example, you can see that I’ve blocked notifications from the “Weibo Games” app, but chosen to continue viewing notifications from other apps.
Like I said, it’s quite a minor tweak, but it should be a welcome respite for users who subscribe to lots of weibo apps and find themselves bombarded with inane notifications. It’s also just good to see that Sina is generally moving to include opt-out options for some of its services. Maybe someday it’ll add an opt-out option for censorship? (It won’t, but a man can dream.)
[via Sina Tech]