
Firebase Predictions Beta - kawera
https://firebase.google.com/products/predictions/
======
mathgeek
> reward users who are likely to make in-app purchases

It's nothing new, but I still find it amusing how much the IAP model has
borrowed from the marketing handbook of narcotics dealers.

------
mkj
Is this solely using in-app analytics as input for the learning, or other
knowledge of users from elsewhere in google?

~~~
phpencil
Right now just analytics, but we are considering other inputs too, as we know
many devs have data in other sources which can be used to bolster prediction
quality.

------
jannes
So in how many years is Google going to shut down Firebase? It was an
acquisition and they don't tend to keep those running for long.

~~~
mg74
This knee-jerk-ism is tiresome. There are plenty of products that Google has
retired, and plenty of products that Google has continued to invest in. Just
like any other big corporation.

(acquisition still running, top of my head: Google Docs, Android, YouTube,
DoubleClick)

~~~
hk__2
Well it’s so common Wikipedia has a dedicated category for them:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_acquisitions)

~~~
mg74
And is it anymore than other big corporation? That pages lists 24 products,
which doesn't seem that much to me. There have been plenty of stories about
retired products at FB, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, etc.

Im not disputing that Google does this, but ever since Google Reader was
stopped this has become a stock comment on basically every HN discussion on
Google products (other than search & ads) and has long ceased to have any
value at all, and seems to be just accepted as some gospel without any
evidence that this is a bigger problem with Google than the other tech giants.

~~~
adam12
> And is it anymore than other big corporation?

I don't think hk__2 is promoting another big corporation.

~~~
joshuamorton
I don't think hk__2 was promoting Google.

------
kawera
Short promo video on their youtube channel:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORrvrVEHJz4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORrvrVEHJz4)

------
kylehotchkiss
Will this work in browsers too? It would be very cool if it did

~~~
codingninja
Take a look at [https://RetroAnalytics.io](https://RetroAnalytics.io) \- It's
a predictive web analytics platform. Similar features to Firebase Prediction
though built for the web and mobile and you aren't locked into Firebase.

Disclaimer - I'm the founder :) Would love your feedback !

------
awjr
I've played with Firebase but have been exploring GraphQL services recently.
Initially [http://www.graph.cool/](http://www.graph.cool/) and
[https://scaphold.io/](https://scaphold.io/)

Graph.cool just released their development framework so I may investigate.

I realise Firebase and GraphQL are very different beasts but I think they
serve the same market. It would be good to see Firebase at some point offer a
GraphQL interface but the data structures are very different.

~~~
alexpriceco
Do _not_ use Scaphold. They’ve gone completely dark, and haven’t responded to
support requests in over a month.

Graph.cool is rad. We used it while migrating to Google Cloud, just so we
could be off of Scaphold.

------
adam_gyroscope
Great to see Google entering this space!

My company, Gyroscope Software (getgyroscope.com) does prediction, cohorting
and timing of callbacks into mobile games and apps, with plugins for iOS and
Unity. We've built a real-time prediction engine to make this happen; we also
use some neat tech to get us enough data from the clients to do fast machine
learning without the developer having to do any instrumentation, data
collection, or other data wrangling - we do this automatically. Happy to
answer any questions anyone has.

------
lettergram
I think this is interesting, but I'm having trouble seeing how it'll be used.
Personally, when I want to do things like this - I roll my own custom
solutions because I want more control.

Given that, I guess I'll be giving it a shot (although I think Firebase in
general is super over priced)

~~~
baronseng
So what are the better priced alternatives?

~~~
thinkloop
I was curious about the answer myself, and bumped into kinto:
[http://kinto.readthedocs.io/en/latest/overview.html](http://kinto.readthedocs.io/en/latest/overview.html)

\- Build collaborative applications with real time updates and fine-grained
permissions.

\- Our JavaScript client for browsers leverages IndexedDB to work completely
offline and synchronise data when online.

\- It’s even possible for data to be encrypted on the client to keep user data
safe on the server.

\- Permissions can be set on the stored objects, making it possible to share
data between users.

\- Kinto is an HTTP API in front of a database. Interactions with the server
are simple HTTP requests rather than complex SQL or map-reduce queries. It is
meant to be minimalist and simple.

This would be a self-hosted solution. They have a pre-built docker image to
spin it up.

Previous HN links:

\- 641 days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10994736](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10994736)

\- 687 days ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10733164](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10733164)

~~~
fulafel
Looks like Kinto uses PostgreSQL as the backend ([http://docs.kinto-
storage.org/en/stable/configuration/produc...](http://docs.kinto-
storage.org/en/stable/configuration/production.html)). This was a little
buried in the web docs and website.

------
adam12
What kind of revenue should you be earning from a popular app on Firebase to
justify the cost of using Firebase (for an indie developer). It looks great,
but I'm afraid I won't be able to afford it.

I'm currently researching open source solutions such as Parse.

~~~
Mithorium
I haven't used it much but from the pricing page it seems affordable enough.
There is also a calculator at the bottom for big apps where you can estimate
how much it will cost for the plan at scale

[https://firebase.google.com/pricing/](https://firebase.google.com/pricing/)

------
mcemilg
Machine learning problems are unique for each case. How can they apply them
all. If it works it will be revolutionary but I guess it won't...

~~~
phpencil
Firebaser here! We don't generally target all use cases, just event prediction
from a stream of anslytics events, which is a lot more constrained. Give it a
try, it's pretty robust!

------
misterbowfinger
> Predictions are available for iOS and Android apps that include the
> Analytics SDK

Any plans to have this work for web apps?

~~~
phpencil
Firebaser here! Its dependent on Google Analytics for Firebase one web - so,
we need to get that in first!

------
jayd16
So how is this particular feature priced? Is it set up so the analytics
consumes cloud function CPU?

~~~
phpencil
Its free!

------
yAnonymous
To me it seems like Firebase essentially supports the cancer of the
(app/software) industry:

Creating/buying an app, making it popular and drawing every last penny out of
it while pissing off the core users who helped to make it popular and then
letting it die. Rinse and repeat.

It helps you piss off the core/current users a little less to draw out the
process as much as possible and make more profits, but the result is the same.

Using optimization strategies and software like Firebase disconnects you from
the user base as you turn your users into the product. Of course this would
come from Google who are experts at it. They get away with it though, because
their software is great and there are few alternatives, but that's not the
case in the app market.

/rant

~~~
bovermyer
If you're pissed at predictive modeling being used for apps, I assume you're
incensed at predictive modeling being used in general marketing, where it's
been in use for many decades?

