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Gaming the App Store

Posted by kdawson on from the burning-your-knees-on-astroturf dept.

space_in_your_face writes "Want to boost the popularity of your latest iPhone app? Ask Reverb Communications! 'When it comes to winning in the App Store, this PR firm has discovered a dynamite strategy: throw ethics out the window. Reverb Communications, a PR firm that represents dozens of game publishers and developers, has managed to find astounding success on Apple's App Store for its clients. Among its various tactics? It hires a team of interns to trawl iTunes and other community forums posing as real users, and has them write positive reviews for their client's applications. ... Reverb claims that their clients have sold over $2 billion of product under their watch.'"

3 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. How about negative reviews? by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 3, Informative

    One thing I've noticed at the App Store is that a lot of perfectly fine apps get a lot of 1 star reviews for ridiculous reasons. For instance, a review might state that the app does what it claimed to do flawlessly, that it is useful, and the best app in the category--but the reviewer also wish it had feature X (which no other app has), and the reviewer then gives it just 1 star, apparently for this "missing" feature.

    This doesn't appear to be an isolated problem. Nearly every very good app I've downloaded has had a lot of these kind of negative reviews.

    I wonder if anyone is purposefully trying to game the store by posting negative reviews on competitors, too?

  2. Re:It could be illegal. by TheRealDogByte · · Score: 4, Informative

    In Europe, at least, this comes under the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive: http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/rights/ Here's a more friendly synopsis: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/new-uk-law-criminalizes-stealth-marketing-techniques

  3. Re:Not news by mybecq · · Score: 4, Informative

    I find it particularly surprising that a company with as much control over their system as apple don't limit reviews to app purchasers

    Apparently they started doing that in Feb 2009.