[MUSIC PLAYING]
[APPLAUSE]
DOUG STEVENSON: Hello, and welcome to "Meet Firebase,"
where you get to meet the Googlers that
make Firebase happen.
Today on the show we have Zayna Shahzad.
She's joining us from the Firebase App Indexing team.
[APPLAUSE]
It's great to have you on the show.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Thank you for having me.
DOUG STEVENSON: So I'm really curious to know
what has your role been with the Firebase App Indexing team?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: So I am a developer programs engineer
for Firebase developer relations.
And what that means is that I engage
with the community of developers and sort of provide the tools
that they would need in order to get started with Firebase App
Indexing.
So that typically means providing some sort of a video
to help them get used to the API and show them how to integrate
it with their apps.
I also provide code labs, just educational material
to tell developers how they can use some
of the offerings of Firebase.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK, great.
And so in particular, you have one video
that I think is coming up about app indexing and also a code
lab that people can follow.
So if you're interested in finding out about that,
the links to that are in the description below.
So there's new features in app indexing for Firebase--
for Android, I should say.
I want to ask you about that later.
But right now I'm really curious.
You have two of the letter Z or zed in your name.
That seems pretty exotic to me.
Tell me, where are you from?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: I actually grew up in Canada
in the suburbs of Toronto.
But my parents are originally from Pakistan.
And so my name is Arabic.
It's funny that you just said zed.
Because being a Canadian, we typically-- I mean,
Z and zed, there's this huge American-Canadian thing.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah, I'm practicing
my new Canadian pronunciation.
So I'm curious; how did you get into software engineering?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: That's actually a really funny story.
So I was originally planning on going
to school for becoming a lawyer and to major in criminology.
I had every intention of doing the LSATs
and going to law school afterwards.
But I kind of got scared last minute
before going to university.
And I ended up trying to apply for something
completely different.
And I didn't know what that was going to be.
But during the application process,
I had been filling out my birth date.
It's 10/24, October 24th.
DOUG STEVENSON: That's a good round number for computers.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: There you go, yeah.
So I mean it's a number-- I knew my screen resolution
at the time was 1024 by 768.
And 2 to the power of 10 is 1024-- you know,
binary numbers.
It's just a number that comes up in computer science a lot.
And so just based off of that, I applied for computer science.
DOUG STEVENSON: So you entered you entered 1024 into the form
where you choose your major.
Is that how I'm reading that?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Oh, yeah.
I mean, I put that in there.
And then right next to it I did put computer science
as well because I know.
DOUG STEVENSON: So you knew what you were getting into.
But it was almost kind of accidental, maybe
serendipitous, that you decided this.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Right.
Before I got to that form, I actually
didn't even know computer science was
a major that you could go into.
[LAUGHTER]
DOUG STEVENSON: Well, now you know,
and you've made a career out of it.
[APPLAUSE]
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: And I haven't looked back since.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, that's great.
So I'm curious; what do you do with your free time
when you're not working with computers here at Google?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: So I actually like
to do something called geocaching.
Do you know what that is?
DOUG STEVENSON: No, please tell me.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: OK.
So it's this treasure hunt that's around the world.
And it's everyday people.
They go to spots that are special to them,
like something from your childhood--
a waterfall that you found beautiful.
So what you do is you hide a container there.
And the container typically has things
like a log, a pen that you can sign
the log with, and then usually a little collectible
of some sort.
You take that.
You hide it in that location.
You take the coordinates of it.
And you put it into a website on geocaching.
And other people will come along.
They'll take that coordinate, put it
into their phone, for example, in Google Maps.
And they'll go and try and find this cache that you put.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, so it sounds like you
could have kind of a mini adventure
even within your own neighborhood.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Exactly.
DOUG STEVENSON: So tell me, what kind of adventures
have you had?
What's been most interesting?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: The one that sticks out
in my mind is one instance where I was at a park
and there was this large tree, and it
had a rock right next to it.
I remember I was looking for this cache for the longest
time.
I couldn't quite figure it out.
I ended up kicking the rock and moving it.
And I found underneath it was actually hollowed out,
and that was the cache.
There was like a mayo container that was sticking out
from the bottom.
It had been hollowed out.
So I opened it up.
And immediately-- I think it had been raining recently.
And there was like spiders and bugs
and everything just came out jumping out at me,
and it was absolutely disgusting.
DOUG STEVENSON: Well, that sounds like probably not
the adventure you had intended to take.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Yeah, I took a break
from geocaching for a little while.
But I did go back to it.
DOUG STEVENSON: That's perfectly understandable.
So I understand you also have a pet.
What's that?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: I have a half chihuahua half corgi.
She's about 14 months old now.
I like to take her on my adventures.
DOUG STEVENSON: And what's her name?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Callie.
DOUG STEVENSON: Callie?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Yeah.
DOUG STEVENSON: I think she's super cute.
I suffer from terminal cuteness watching these pictures
earlier-- very beautiful.
Now, Google offices, it turns out, are dog friendly, right?
So people bring their pets in, and that's OK as long
as they're well-behaved.
Have you ever brought Callie into the office before?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: I tried once.
She barked a lot, letting me know that people were around.
And she wanted to say hi to everyone
so it was very distracting.
DOUG STEVENSON: I see.
So she's not office-friendly, it sounds like.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: No, not really, and I
think I'm going to keep her at home from now on.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
So going back to App Indexing's new features,
could you tell me what's new in the Firebase App Indexing SDK,
please?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Yeah, sure.
So Firebase App Indexing allows you to get your Android app
into Google Search.
If users have your app installed,
they're able to launch the app directly from Google search
results, and that just helps them reengage with your app
quickly, find the content that they're looking for.
It even provides query autocompletion
if you start typing something in.
And if they don't have your app installed,
it shows a little install card directly in the Google Search
results so that you can drive traffic to your Android
app in that way.
Now, with this new update that we just
had with version 10 of the library,
Firebase App Indexing API lets you put personal content
into Google's on-device index.
So you're able to put messages, music, bookmarks,
things that are very specific to your app users
into the Google on-device index.
And you're able to update real time with interactions
that they take in your app so that you
can provide autocompletion and like actions that they've taken
on that content in real time.
DOUG STEVENSON: So it sounds like it's
a great way for users to rediscover
the content that they once interacted with after having
used the app some time.
So they can reengage with your app after any amount of time.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Exactly.
DOUG STEVENSON: So it's funny you mentioned autocomplete.
You know how sometimes Google searches
can give you suggestions on how to complete your query?
And sometimes those suggestions can
be kind of funny or interesting or maybe a little awkward.
So I've got a game for you to play on that point.
I call it, "Guess the Suggestion."
And what you have to do is guess what Google would autocomplete
for a certain phrase.
So there's 10.
Zayna, you'll have up to three wrong guesses.
So it's three strikes, and you're out.
You get points based on how relevant the answer was.
So you'll want to guess the most common searches first
and the least common last.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Let's do it.
DOUG STEVENSON: All right, great.
The phrase that you'll have to complete is, do corgis what?
[LAUGHTER]
You have a corgi, right?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Do corgis snuggle?
DOUG STEVENSON: So do corgis snuggle?
Let's take a look at it up at the board.
[DINGING]
Like to cuddle-- so we'll give that one to you.
That's close enough.
So you get three points for that.
Congratulations.
Would you like to take another guess?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: All right.
Do corgis like to-- what was the original?
DOUG STEVENSON: Do corgis what?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Do you corgis sleep a lot?
DOUG STEVENSON: OK, let's look at it up on the board.
[FAIL SOUND]
Oh, I'm sorry.
That's right.
That's one of the choices.
So I'll give you a hint.
One of the hints is some things that potential dog owners
might be concerned about when they
get a dog for the first time.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Oh, do corgis bark a lot?
DOUG STEVENSON: Do corgis bark a lot?
Let's see it up on the board.
[DINGING]
All right, yes, that is the number two answer,
so you get nine points for that.
Very good.
All right, let's take another guess.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Do corgis chew things?
DOUG STEVENSON: Do corgis chew things?
All right, let's go to the board.
[FAIL SOUND]
Oh, I'm sorry.
That's not quite one of the ones.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Oh, man!
I'm not doing all that well.
DOUG STEVENSON: Well, you're doing OK.
This is a hard game, I think.
So that's two questions you have wrong.
You have one more wrong answer.
I'll give you another hint.
What are some of the distinctive physical features for corgis?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: I know they have short legs.
They wiggle their butt while they're walking.
DOUG STEVENSON: But what would someone search in a query?
Do corgis--
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Do corgis shed a lot?
DOUG STEVENSON: Do corgis shed a lot?
Let's take a look at it up on the board.
[DINGING]
And yes, that's the number one answer.
You get 10 points for that.
Very good.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: I knew it.
She sheds so much.
DOUG STEVENSON: (LAUGHING) Yeah, and it's something dog owners
may want to know.
All right, take another guess.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Oh, man, I'm running out
of ideas. (LAUGHING)
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah, well, it does get harder.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Do corgis have a lot of energy?
DOUG STEVENSON: OK, let's see it up on the board.
[FAIL SOUND]
Oh, I'm sorry.
It's not there.
It was a good guess.
I would have probably guessed that to, but it's not.
So let's take a look at the answers that you didn't guess.
So you got number one, shedding.
Number two-- barking.
The other one is do corgis have tails,
and do corgis have dew claws?
Do corgis like water?
You mentioned short legs.
One of the questions is, do corgis have knees?
Do corgis smell?
Do corgis like cats?
So maybe people are wondering if corgis get along with cats.
And the last one is, do corgis like monkeys?
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: OK.
DOUG STEVENSON: Now, that one doesn't make any sense to me
at all, actually.
I'm going to say, Nate, did you have
any influence in that answer?
NATE: What's up, dudes?
Let's rock.
[LAUGHTER]
DOUG STEVENSON: I would prefer not to tamper
with the results of the game.
So we're going to talk after the show.
Nate has been a little unruly lately.
[LAUGHTER]
We'll talk later.
Zayna, let's take a look at your final score up on the board.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: All right, not bad.
DOUG STEVENSON: All right?
Pretty good, right?
Thanks for playing, Zayna.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Thank you.
DOUG STEVENSON: Good to have you on the show.
ZAYNA SHAHZAD: Thank you so much.
DOUG STEVENSON: And for those of you
who haven't seen App Indexing yet, go check out the SDK.
The links are in the description below.
That's all we have time for.
See you next time on another "Meet Firebase."
[APPLAUSE]
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