Facebook-owned Parse adds analytics, more third-party tools to developer platform

One of Facebook's most buzzed-about acquisitions as of late, Parse, hosted a developer summit with a host of new services in the pipeline.

The anchor of the new releases is the addition of analytics. Following up a recent release offering insights into data concerning push notifications, Parse is adding a custom analytics service that tracks "arbitrary events with an arbitrary set of dimensions."

That translates to setting up developers with a dashboard that measures custom-designated events against data automatically being tracked by Parse.

Parse is also tacking on a pair of new cloud modules for facilitating the integration of a Parse-made app with third-party services: one based on logins and another solely for sizing images.

Some of the businesses already using Parse for developing their mobile apps include The Food Network, Eventbrite, the Showtime network, and Ferrari.

Gaming could be another big target for Parse (and Facebook, undoubtedly) with the launch of a new SDK for Unity, a a cross-platform game engine with a built-in integrated development environment used for developing games for web plugins, desktop platforms, consoles and mobile devices

To recall, Facebook acquired Parse, a startup with a cloud-based platform of scalable cross-platform services and tools for developers (notably those working on iOS and Android) back in April.

At the time the deal went down, Facebook reps asserted that the acquisition was "not a talent deal," emphasizing that the social network wanted the tools and services more than anything else, which can be turned around into a potentially major additional revenue stream.

Such a deal also marked a bigger B2B play by Facebook.

However, both Facebook and the Parse team have stressed that virtually nothing is going to change as far as Parse operations go -- at least for now.

During a media presentation at its Menlo Park headquarters in May, the Facebook developer team outlined how Parse fits in with the world's largest social network's evolving mobile-first strategy.

Parse founder Ilya Sukhar remarked at the time that Parse's SDK is designed to make things "dramatically easier" for independent third-party developers and small businesses, backing that up by citing that more than 200 million devices have installed apps built using the Parse SDK.

With Parse onboard, Facebook is aiming to build up its own developer ecosystem with more tools to dish out to third-party developers (and, by extension, advertisers).

Image via Parse