[MUSIC PLAYING]
DOUG STEVENSON: It's not real easy to put together
a set in a show like this.
I didn't realize that when we started.
JON MENSING: Well, I think you've done a great job here.
Although, to be honest, I think we
could make better use of the space.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh.
JON MENSING: Let me show you.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
JON MENSING: So by increasing the physical distance
between us, we're adding emotional distance,
which is important.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
JON MENSING: You'll see.
Go ahead and ask your first question.
DOUG STEVENSON: Uh, all right.
So Jon, where are you from?
JON MENSING: See how much better that was?
DOUG STEVENSON: Not really, actually.
But we can roll with it.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to #MeetFirebase, the show
where you get to meet the Googlers that
make Firebase happen.
My name is Doug Stevenson, developer advocate
with the Firebase team, and on the show with me
today is Jon Mensing.
Jon?
JON MENSING: Hello.
DOUG STEVENSON: Thanks for being here in the Firebasement
with me.
JON MENSING: Yes.
DOUG STEVENSON: What do you think of the place?
JON MENSING: It is very nice.
It reminds me of home.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, wow.
I'm surprised you have a home that looks like this.
So Jon, what is your role on the Firebase team?
JON MENSING: So I'm a product manager,
and I work on our messaging-related features,
most notably Firebase Cloud Messaging.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
So Firebase Cloud Messaging is what
you use for server-to-device messaging, right?
JON MENSING: Exactly, yes.
DOUG STEVENSON: So what kind of things
have developers been doing with that lately?
JON MENSING: Well, we've been working all the time
to upgrade all parts of Firebase Cloud Messaging, especially
the analytics and the console features
that allow developers to send through the UI.
And we've been launching new features all the time.
I'm very proud that we recently launched
some new reporting and analytics for the API
sends that give developers insight
into the performance of their sends from send to open.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
So performance meaning, like, how effective
they are at reaching their end users.
JON MENSING: Exactly.
So it's really important for developers
to understand what happens after they send their message.
Does it actually get delivered to the user?
And does the user end up interacting with that
and then going on to the app and doing the things
that the developer wants them to do?
So we've recently introduced some new features
that help developers figure that out.
DOUG STEVENSON: But I'm curious to know, what's new
in Firebase Cloud Messaging?
Or you said the messaging features of Firebase.
JON MENSING: Well, we did recently
launch a new product called Firebase In-App Messaging,
which is like it sounds.
It's a way for developers to show
a message to their in-app users after some sort of a trigger.
So for example, if I were an app owner of a game,
and I had a user who maybe either passed or didn't pass
a given level, I could show an appropriate message
to that user saying--
maybe even giving them a hint in the case where they didn't pass
the level, or saying congratulations
in the case where they did.
So that's a sort of flexible messaging system
that we've recently launched.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK, OK.
So that's different than Cloud Messaging,
because Cloud Messaging is server-to-device.
But this is entirely on-device.
JON MENSING: Yeah.
So we do send the message from the server to device,
but the way that the user experiences
that is when they're already in the app,
as opposed to a remote notification, which
is shown to the user whether or not they're using the app.
DOUG STEVENSON: I see, I see.
So if you have a chat app and you have
all the messages coming in.
Even if the app isn't open, you use FCM for that.
JON MENSING: You use FCM for that.
DOUG STEVENSON: But in-app messaging
is for, like you said, triggers for when
events happen within the app, and something
should respond to that.
JON MENSING: Correct, so yeah.
They're already in the app within that messaging.
And FCM is for when they're not.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
Well, I'd like to give that a try.
I've used FCM, but I haven't used in-app messaging yet.
So get out there and use that if you haven't already.
We'd love your feedback.
So speaking of games, it seems like a lot
of the people who I have on the show here
are really into games of some sort.
And everyone here knows I'm into retro games,
and I brought a plastic guitar on here
and played it once because I love the rhythm games.
But what do you enjoy?
What's your game of choice?
JON MENSING: I've been through multiple phases.
I definitely got into a rock band phase,
and that was my favorite thing in the world to do.
Now, I'm playing console games.
I'm playing Nintendo games, Nintendo Switch games,
playing the Mario stuff.
Yeah, just all over the place, though.
I don't discriminate.
DOUG STEVENSON: So games are mostly an indoor thing, right?
Unless you're playing sports.
What about outdoor stuff?
What do you do that's outdoors?
JON MENSING: Well, I am mostly a pretender when
it comes to outdoor things.
I do a lot of planning to go outdoors.
So I like to purchase outdoor equipment and then store it.
DOUG STEVENSON: And then imagine yourself--
JON MENSING: And then think about what
it would be like to go camping.
I've been camping maybe two times
since I moved to San Francisco.
And I had an amazing time, and went fishing,
and did all the things that one is supposed to do.
But the amount of effort and preparation
that went into those camping trips
greatly exceeded the amount of time I actually spent camping.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
I know what you mean.
JON MENSING: And the stuff does not
fit neatly into my very small apartment in San Francisco.
So I've got a small room that is very expensive
to maintain that is just full of things that I don't use.
DOUG STEVENSON: But you get to practice your Tetris skills
trying to stack everything up.
JON MENSING: It is.
And that is [? twofer. ?] So play the games
and get to think about camping at the same time.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah, yeah.
And actually, I just spent the weekend
with a buddy of mine who's going camping through Scotland.
So he's serious.
He's buying the whole tent and the whole backpack,
and all the gear.
JON MENSING: I can't imagine a better place to do it.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
JON MENSING: It is a beautiful country.
DOUG STEVENSON: And he was showing me
some videos and pictures of that, and I'm like, wow,
I'd like to do that.
Except for the actual being outdoors
for like a week and a half.
I don't know if I could do that.
I think I'm a little too indoors-y to appreciate that.
JON MENSING: I think by car is a good way
to experience Scotland also.
DOUG STEVENSON: So what do you do when you're camping?
Do you do fishing or anything like that?
JON MENSING: Yes, I do.
I have caught fish, so I'm officially a fisherman.
I wouldn't say I'm an expert by any means,
but that was one of the big elements of my camping
trip, was to go fly fishing.
And I think I caught a total of about three fish which were--
DOUG STEVENSON: [CHUCKLES]
JON MENSING: In reality, they were something like this,
but no one's going to know.
DOUG STEVENSON: Sure, yeah.
Well, every time you tell the story, it gets bigger, right?
JON MENSING: No one's going to know if I say huge.
DOUG STEVENSON: And I also have on here
that you've done crabbing.
JON MENSING: I have.
DOUG STEVENSON: What's that about?
JON MENSING: Crabbing is--
it is a lost art.
So what you do is you take a net.
Well, there's many ways to do it.
But what I did was to take a net,
and to put something kind of stinky
in the middle of that net, such as squid or chicken parts,
or whatever.
And I toss that out into a body of water where crabs live,
and wait for them to crawl into the net to get the stuff,
and then you pull them out.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK, OK.
I didn't realize that's how you caught crab.
JON MENSING: That's how you catch-- well,
I think that's how everyone catches crabs, including
the big commercial crabbers.
But they're better at it than I am.
DOUG STEVENSON: They have better stinky stuff.
JON MENSING: I think they have more and better traps,
and they do it in better places, and they know what
they're doing, and I don't.
So--
DOUG STEVENSON: Right.
Well, you can fake it, right?
JON MENSING: Well, the amount of skill
that it takes to throw a net into the water
is the amount of skill that I have.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK, yeah.
I can probably manage that too.
JON MENSING: Right.
DOUG STEVENSON: Just enough physical strength
to toss a net.
JON MENSING: Yeah, I have it.
I have the requisite physical strength
to throw a net into the water.
DOUG STEVENSON: All right.
Well, that's all we have time for part one of this interview
with Jon Mensing.
Be sure to join us here tomorrow for part two right here
on the Firebase channel on YouTube.
So be sure to subscribe to get notified
when that happens, and I'll see you here next time.
JON MENSING: I think it's going to get up some dramatic tension
for me to be a distance away.
DOUG STEVENSON: Are you sure about this?
JON MENSING: [EXHALES]
Yes.
[DRAMATIC REVERB]