While there's no alerting system implemented, I've used an external service that scans the website for me and notifies me on my cell phone when there's a change (a phase has moved forward). I've used Web Alert on Android but there are probably others as well. I think my Alert scans the banner on the top of the site and will therefore notice when a game has advanced.

Sending many mails as a small website usually puts you on a blacklist for spammers. We had this with in the beginning, as many people created an account. Maybe I can add a personal RSS-Feed. But usually only the tech-savvy users know how to use RSS.

Understood. I'll just have to be more careful next time.

@Devonian

I had the game start as soon as it was full, but I didn't realize it was going to fill up so quickly.

Are push notifications feasible?

Not really as we have no phone numbers registered for texts or a mobile app, only a mobile web UI for mobile browsers. Push requires an registered app on the phone which means writing it for both Android and iOS (and Windows phone for truly complete coverage) and getting it on all those stores.

An app would be cool though.

There is a standard for push-notifications. It works with most web-browsers, and should work on mobile too. I did some research, but it's a bit too complex for me. If someone could provide me with an easy implementation I can take a look at this.

On the other hand: RSS readers might be able to do Push notifications, and setting up an RSS-feed is really easy. I have implemented one on my development-server already. I'm just thinking about an easy (and secure) way to generate an individual feed for everybody that wants one (and have some ideas already).

I don't think the mobile browsers necessarily implement it. And I've had difficulties with IE and Edge pushes in the past. Chrome on a PC/Mac works great though.

I like the RSS idea. It's older tech, but it's more widely compatible.

For anyone interested I made a first implementation of a personal RSS-feed.
Just check the "Features" tab in your settings.

Very cool! I have no idea how to use it, but awesome for those folks who do ;)

You generate your personal link and click it. If you use a RSS reader it will check for new "notices" in a given interval and send you a notification, or most browsers can create some kind of "life"-bookmark-list out of a rss-feed.

Are we notified about in-game messages using RSS? I am trying out the Android app 'Read' but got no warning about a message.

Is it the app's fault?

No, it's not about in-game messages, only about turn-processing and PMs. It's basically the same as the "Notices"-tab on the home-page.
Implementing this for the ingame-messages would require some database-changes to keep the server-load low. But I'm not sure if it's worth my time to implement this.