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Twitter acquires Crashlytics

crashlytics.com

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Re: Twitter acquires Crashlytics

#11

Post by upthepunx »

This is likely about Twitter getting creepy. Every online advertising company is worried about the growth of the mobile environment, because it's harder to do all of the tracking that they're used to on those platforms. There are no cookies that follow you across apps.

The cookie equivalent in the mobile world is the SDK. Rather than scattering your "like"/"tweet"/"follow" buttons all over the web to track users' movements, you embed your SDK into everyone's apps to do the same thing.

If you are currently a Crashlytics customer, think about how much information is being transmitted to Crashlytics from your app, and what Twitter is going to be able to do with that now.

Re: Twitter acquires Crashlytics

#13

Post by pifflesnort »

zmitri wrote: post #10
monatron wrote: post #4

Crashlytics was never really on my radar until today, but I'm really impressed by their design work. Really great stuff.

Crashlytics has literally changed the game with regards to crash reporting. Their UI and customer service has been wonderful (unlike most other mobile service providers...) and I really hope they continue to offer their services to devs.

They're very big on polish and claiming to be awesome, but it's all smoke and mirrors and gamesmanship.

Drill down on a crash for example: https://d1f4seebrc9wq7.cloudfront.net/blog/wp-content/upload...

All the information provided at the top is done with great attention to beautifully rendered icons, and it's all totally useless for diagnosing a crash report.

This is supposed to be a development tool, not an advertisement.

Re: Twitter acquires Crashlytics

#14

Post by loceng »

upthepunx wrote: post #11

This is likely about Twitter getting creepy. Every online advertising company is worried about the growth of the mobile environment, because it's harder to do all of the tracking that they're used to on those platforms. There are no cookies that follow you across apps. The cookie equivalent in the mobile world is the SDK. Rather than scattering your "like"/"tweet"/"follow" buttons all over the web to track users' mov…

Interesting thought. Any idea how many apps use Crashlytics? There's lots of value in knowing what potential competitor numbers are or even for other strategic reasons.

Re: Twitter acquires Crashlytics

#15

Post by zedred »

pifflesnort wrote: post #13
zmitri wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crashlytics has literally changed the game with regards to crash reporting. Their UI and customer service has been wonderful (unlike most other mobile service providers...) and I really hope they continue to offer their services to devs.

They're very big on polish and claiming to be awesome, but it's all smoke and mirrors and gamesmanship. Drill down on a crash for example: https://d1f4seebrc9wq7.cloudfront.net/blog/wp-content/upload... All the information provided at the top is done with great attention to beautifully rendered icons, and it's all totally useless for diagnosing a crash report. This is supposed to be a development tool, not an adverti…

Agreed, I've had limited experience with the product and was disappointed. I think the above comments are correct, Twitter wanted them for the data not the talent.

Re: Twitter acquires Crashlytics

#16

Post by 0xDECAFFEE »

upthepunx wrote: post #11

This is likely about Twitter getting creepy. Every online advertising company is worried about the growth of the mobile environment, because it's harder to do all of the tracking that they're used to on those platforms. There are no cookies that follow you across apps. The cookie equivalent in the mobile world is the SDK. Rather than scattering your "like"/"tweet"/"follow" buttons all over the web to track users' mov…

All the more reason to use totally open source solutions vs something rolled by other software companies.

Re: Twitter acquires Crashlytics

#19

Post by bitcartel »

pifflesnort wrote: post #13
zmitri wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crashlytics has literally changed the game with regards to crash reporting. Their UI and customer service has been wonderful (unlike most other mobile service providers...) and I really hope they continue to offer their services to devs.

They're very big on polish and claiming to be awesome, but it's all smoke and mirrors and gamesmanship. Drill down on a crash for example: https://d1f4seebrc9wq7.cloudfront.net/blog/wp-content/upload... All the information provided at the top is done with great attention to beautifully rendered icons, and it's all totally useless for diagnosing a crash report. This is supposed to be a development tool, not an adverti…

Apart from the fancy graphics, any reason to use Crashlytics instead of the open-source QuincyKit?

Re: Twitter acquires Crashlytics

#20

Post by jazzychad »

Pure speculation: This fits in well with other sdk platforms that complete the loop for advertising companies focused on mobile. Burstly (mobile ads) bought TestFlight (beta app distribution sdk). Flurry (mobile ads) gives away a free analytics sdk (Flurry Analytics). Now Twitter (ad company) has Crashlytics (crash reporting sdk). In each case, the free offering is a trojan horse to get insight into tons of aggregate data in order to power the advertising/recommendation engines of the parent company.

The only way I can see that this makes sense is if Twitter is going to become a web/mobile-wide ad company and start offering ad units across the web and/or other apps (like AdSense but with tweets as the ad unit).

There could be dozens of different/better reasons that this makes sense, but I can't see them at the moment.

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