Using WNS as part of your Windows 8 Store app? Digging into Windows Azure Mobile Services?  The Windows Notification Service is a key part of the Windows 8 platform and really great apps know how to use Push Notifications to make their great apps awesome.

Here’s a reference I got from my teammate Nick Harris showing off all the variations of Push Notification messages you can send to a Windows 8 machine, either manually from your own code, or from node.js scripts in your Windows Azure Mobile Services.

Toast variants: http://aka.ms/wnstoast

Tile variants: http://aka.ms/wnstile

Badge variants: http://aka.ms/wnsbadge

For the Mobile Services developer, these manifest themselves in the node javascript code something like this:

var parms = {
    image1src: 'http://link.to/myimage.jpg',
    image1alt: 'Alt tag for my image',
    text1: 'Text to put into the notification'
};
push.wns.sendToastImageAndText01(channel, parms);

Check out these links to learn what badge, tile or toast message options are available, and choose the one that makes the most sense for you and your app.