Highlights: Firebase, App Engine, Mobile Ads, Google Container Engine, Kubernetes, Infinite Scrollers, Billions of users, AdMob Mediation.

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TL;DR 033 — July 15th, 2016

Build a mobile backend service with Firebase and App Engine

Want to know how to build a native chat application with Firebase and App Engine? Here’s a step-by-step guide and sample code for both an Android app and an App Engine-based backend service.

Mobile Ads Garage — AdMob with Firebase

In the latest episode of the Mobile Ads Garage, David East joins host Andrew Brogdon to cover Firebase for AdMob publishers, including how to import both SDKs into a project and how to link an AdMob app to a Firebase project so you can take advantage of Firebase’s free and unlimited analytics.

Google Container Engine

Game developer Rayark just hit 2 million downloads with their game, VOEZ, which is running in production on Google Container Engine. Take a look at the post for the principles to their success.

Kubernetes 1.3 on Google Container Engine

Kubernetes 1.3 is ready to roll out on Google Container Engine and will be available to all customers over the coming week. The latest release addresses many top requests including services that span availability zones, built-in support for stateful applications and doubling the number of nodes in a cluster to 2,000. For more details, including the latest updates to Container Engine, check out the post.

Complexities of an infinite scroller

This is a really cool article over on our web updates page about what to consider when building an infinite scroller. Spoiler alert: Re-use your DOM elements and remove the ones that are far away from the viewport; also, use placeholders to account for delayed data. Here’s the post with details, a demo, and the code!

Building for Billions

To build products that work for billions of users, you need to address key challenges: limited or intermittent connectivity, device compatibility, varying screen sizes, high data costs, and short-lived batteries. Take a look at the post for best practices on both web and Android to help you reach billions by delivering exceptional performance in spite of these issues.

AdMob Mediation

Game developer Balloon Island increased revenue by about 150% with AdMob Mediation. To learn how, check out the case study.