- published: 24 Sep 2014
- views: 2335457
A modern notification system is a combination of software and hardware that provides a means of delivering a message to a set of recipients. For example, notification systems can send an e-mail when a new topic has been added to Wikipedia. The complexity of the notification system is often dependent on the types of messages that must be sent. An e-mail noting when a page has been inserted into Wikipedia is adequate for such a straightforward task. However, notifying individuals when a building is on fire would require real-time interaction, escalation, scheduling[disambiguation needed ], rosters, and fail-over scenarios.
A notification system is only as good as the contact data contained within. Uploading recipient data is not ideal, as data can be wrong (miskeyed number or letter), false (purposely wrong data), or invalid (phone number has changed). Therefore, notification systems with opt-in data collection can validate data in realtime for all said errors and more. In addition, due to the escallation of unwanted email (spam) and unwanted calls (do not call list), notification system providers are wary of violating existing laws and/or blacklisting by 3rd parties who carry the notification. An opt-in process of collecting data harbors the provider from unlawful use, because each recipient is giving the notification provider permission to contact him or her.