Firebase Dev Summit: Recent Firebase Announcements

…and the Firebase Hot Sauce Challenge the Flamelink.io Team doesn’t know about yet…

So our bags are already packed for Firebase Dev Summit happening in Prague, Czech Republic on 29 October 2018. Some of the Flamelink.io team were in Amsterdam last year and had a blast meeting other Developers using Firebase as well as high-fiving some of the amazing Firebase Family - not to mention the rad after-party. This year, we were pleasantly surprised to hear about some new announcements about additions to the Firebase eco-system -which we’re hoping will translate into some more amazing demos and presos at Dev Summit.

So in no particular order - here are some of the announcements from Firebase over that last few weeks that we’re pretty darn excited about.

Firebase In-App Messaging

At first, I read it as In-App Massaging. While I did think this was pretty cool, I felt like this might be taking the VR experience a little too far. Until I read the Firebase blog post a little further.

Ah, yes. MESSAGING. Got. It.

Anyway, launched on 20 August, Firebase In-App Messaging allows you to send messages to specific users (who are already engaged and using your app) to help guide them through your app with special offers and discounts, tips and other info relevant to them, all in real time. Note: This doesn’t replace the existing Firebase messaging functionality used for push notifications when users are not using your app.

Social nudging has been around for a few years now, and essentially it’s a way for you to “nudge” users of your app into a desired action like signing up, purchasing something, engaging with your content etc. In-App Messaging does exactly this, and because this features within your App, they should feel a lot less invasive and “spammy”, feeling like it adds to the end user’s experience — which at the end of the day is the primary objective we should be focusing on.

There are a number of amazing stuff you can do with Firebase In-App Messaging, you can read more on the Firebase Blog.

As part of Flamelink.io’s Marketing team, I’m particularly excited about potential campaigns we could run using In-App Messaging, like announcing a new feature, giving new users even more helpful hints and tips or even incentivising current users to share Flamelink with other Firebase users. I also can’t wait to see some of the use cases that come out when combined with some of the Machine Learning aspects/kits released by Firebase earlier this year. We’ve seen it in our own business, that a spray-and-pray/one-size-fits-all approach no longer cuts the mustard. Personalisation of user experiences is key to ensuring user retention of your app and helps you to fine-tune your marketing activities.

Multiple Sites in a Single Project in Firebase Hosting:

If you manage more than one Firebase Hosting site that shares a single project, you’ll now be able to manage these sites from one central hub. So if two of your apps pull data from the same Firebase project, you can now host them on Firebase’s multi-site hosting which helps you save time and money — if you know anything about Flamelink, it’s that we’re also all about saving Developers using Firebase time and money.

Photo by Andrew Wulf on Unsplash

For more of the technical nitty gritties, check out the Firebase Blog. Spoilers: They also announce a boost in upload speed. Wait, what?

Overall Improvements to Crashlytics and exporting that sweet, sweet data to BigQuery

Photo by Lennart Heim on Unsplash

Imma level with you on this one dear reader. This particular one went over my head because I am NOT a developer, but JP tells me this is a pretty cool announcement. The Firebase Crashlytics dashboard lets you export all your raw crash data to BigQuery where you can analyse what went wrong, displaying it using Data Studio — this is particularly helpful when trying to illustrate the issue to non-technical users like myself, in pretty picture format. What a wow.

For more on this, head over to the Firebase Blog.

Ah, yes, the Flamelink Team Firebase Hot Sauce Challenge…

Photo by Traolách Conboy on Unsplash

Cards on the table, the rest of the team don’t know about it just yet, but if I can get my hands on a bottle of Firebase Hot Sauce at Dev Summit 2018, we’ll be melting our faces off on a local Czech dish. I’m open to recommendations for what that dish should be, as well as what the prize should be for the winner, and the penalty should be for the loser — and no, I’m not shaving my beard if I lose. It’s in my passport photo now and I don’t want to be thrown off my flight back home because I look completely different.

For the latest Firebase Announcements, check out the Firebase Blog, or follow them on Twitter.

Till next time.

Jason