We’ve been working to improve notifications to you over the past year, so that you’ll know when Hubs, comments, questions, answers, and forum posts are published on the site that you might want to know about. 2011 saw plenty of customization options, as well as improved digest and instant notifications, so that you could personalize when and how we notified you via email.
Starting on Monday, and on a limited basis at first (approximately 10% of users, randomly chosen), a notifications pane, similar to the one you might have seen used on Facebook and Google+, will let you know about site activity that might interest you, including comments left on Hubs you’re following, Forum posts on threads you’re following, new answers to any questions you’re following, and the like. Using requires simply clicking on the number, which represents how many unread notifications you have, and then clicking on the notification itself. If you have more than 6 notifications, clicking on the final row of the notification pane will take you to a listing of your most recent notifications.
After this initial trial rollout, when we’ll be fixing any bugs and adding additional polish and other utility enhancements, we’ll roll out this exciting new feature to everyone.
Take a look at a screenshot furnished by Simone below, to get an idea of what to expect:
HubPages Blog 
Loving it! Can’t wait for the roll out!
JSMatthew~
This panel is actually one of the most annoying aspects of Facebook, because it is there automatically and you can’t hide it, unlike Google+ where you have to click on it to see anything.
Glad to see you’re constantly working on ways to improve the user experience.
This is like Facebook. To think that HubPages is also linked with FB.
Yes, let’s welcome this improvement for the good of HP community.
Hooray to the HP staff! Two thumbs up!!!
I noticed this feature yesterday but haven’t gone back to figure out if these new notices are also still showing up on the “home” or feed page. Is this new feature just a different way of seeing the feed when we are not on the home page? Thx:)
You could think of it as a sort of portable home feed, Kris! That’s a good way to think of it.
Simone – thanks for that analogy! I like it:)
I really like this new change! Great job!
I was following a forum topic and getting the notifications and have since stopped following the forum post but I am still getting flooded with notifications. There appears to be a glitch dealing with the forum follows and unfollows?
Hey Dale, is that problem persisting? If so, would you mind pointing it out again in the Report a Problem forum? Here’s its URL: http://hubpages.com/forum/4
So far, I really like the new notification option.
This is really interesting post and stuff. I like hub pages. I think notification pane is very important. And many features are with this.
Great stuff.