Every day running a startup is exciting, but some days are more exciting than others. This is one of those days. I’m happy to announce that Pinch Media has signed a definitive agreement to merge with Flurry. Flurry and Pinch Media are the biggest companies out there doing mobile application analytics, and now that we’re combining, we’ve got a dominant position in this exploding space. (And, thanks to Flurry, we’ve got code for Android and Blackberry! I’m so happy to be able to offer this to customers now.)

While planning for this merger, we adopted a simple rule: our customers only benefit. Everyone will retain access to the same features they use now. No one will have to modify their mobile applications to maintain their analytics. Every bit of data you’ve sent us will be retained – you’ll always have access to your reporting. When the integration after the merger’s complete, you’ll have everything you’ve always had, plus more features, better update speed, and the ability to get analytics on more smartphone platforms. Here’s how we’re doing this:

We’ve already decided that the basic infrastructure going forward will be Flurry’s. We were beginning to rewrite much of our system using Hadoop and HBase, to improve our scalability and update speeds. Flurry’s already done this – so this is what we call a ‘no brainer’. So we’re identifying all the features on Pinch Media that aren’t present on Flurry, and we’ll be adding them there. While this is happening, Pinch Media’s not going to go anywhere – everything will continue to work as it always has.

We’ll also be working on a bit of translation, so Flurry’s system can receive data from applications running Pinch Media. This is essential – there are hundreds of millions of application installs out there with Pinch Media code, and we’re going to continue to receive and aggregate every bit of information coming from those installs.

Finally, we’re going to combine our data sets. Your Pinch Media accounts and historical data will be migrated to the combined Flurry product. You’ll be able to get the same reporting you’re getting from Pinch Media via Flurry’s system, including your historical reporting. You’ll also get access to some of the features Flurry has but we don’t – by combining the companies, everyone gets access to a superset of features. Only when all this is done will we stop running two analytics systems simultaneously. At that point, we’ll ask everyone to log into their newly-created Flurry accounts going forward.

The Pinch team will all be staying with the combined company, working out of our New York office. Having a single analytics system frees us up to work on new products – once the integration is complete, we’ll be spending our time building systems that leverage our analytics data to help developers make more money, projects we’ve wanted to do for some time. If you’ve got any questions about the merger, there’s more information in our press release (.pdf) and FAQ, and you can always write our support line at support@pinchmedia.com.