Ping me (tomaz[at]codeable[dot]io) if you do that (getting rid of Backbone dependency), I'll be more than happy to include it in our product, since we're just in the middle of implementing a notification system.
Excellent, and while you're at it, make it a proper jQuery plugin then advertise it like one. Review sites and bloggers will be more than happy to put it in their "Top X jQuery plugins" posts, giving you a wider reach.
