
Cheating the App Store: PR firm has interns post positive reviews for clients - vaksel
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/08/22/cheating-the-app-store-pr-firm-has-interns-post-positive-reviews-for-clients/
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wmeredith
I'm assuming this is something we've all considered around here and my advice
is to be very careful. This _has been_ common (if not standard procedure as
claimed below) for PR firms for a few years now, but it won't be common for
much longer.

In July, Lifestyle Lift (cosmetic surgery outfit) got slapped with a $300,000
fine by the state of New York for having employees leave false-positive
reviews online. The FTC has labeled this "astroturfing" and has made public
announcements that they are _very interested_ in the ease with which this
practice is accomplished on large scales with new media and how that relates
to their role regarding consumer protection.

I'm the online marketing guy at an integrated marketing firm in Kansas City,
and last week I warned a client off of false reviews in favor of more
legitimate marketing efforts (compelling link-bait, usability investments,
article marketing, PPC, etc...) just last week. I cited this case during that
conversation.

It's exciting to be in marketing, and the media industry in general, right now
because all the rules are being re-written. It also means that you'd better
stay up to date on the environment you're operating in. I'm not qualified to
offer legal advice, but it seems to me that having an employee leave
disingenuous reviews online isn't a far jump from having a PR firm under
contract do it for you.

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ujjwalg
Almost everyone is doing this on the appstore including the big names.
Moreover, I am just astonished by the fact that apple is still letting
developers game the system by allowing the developers to change the
availability date with new updates so that the apps show up as new releases.
If they stop this, it will probably reduce the number of submissions from
8500/week to probably 1000/week and thereby being more consistent.

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colinplamondon
There's nothing wrong with highlighting well-updated apps, the problem is more
that it's really uneven. Developers have to manually update the review date
within 12 hours of an update going live, which is an extra step that not
everyone knows about it- if Apple just automated it, no worries.

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ujjwalg
Currently the system is being gamed by developers posting updates without any
real updates to take advantage of this. It annoys the hell out of me when I
get updates every week for apps which dont have anything new adding on to them
because developers are trying to make as much money as possible without
thinking about the users at all. The review date should only be allowed to
change twice an year or something so that only major updates get the advantage
of being highlighted.

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colinplamondon
Yup, that's the better answer- we need a flag for 'Major Update' and a flag
for 'Rush Submission' in the case of an update that has to go out quickly. If
we had two rush's a year (per account) and one major per six months then that
would go a long, long ways to fixing the system.

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tvon
_Dishonesty_ , from a _PF firm_ ‽

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eru
PF?

~~~
eru
What does PF mean?

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brianlash
PR

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eru
OK. I thought I missed a hidden pun.

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petercooper
Semi-related.. I saw a paid app recently that had hundreds of reviews, yet it
wasn't _particularly_ popular. The trick? The game gave you a code that you
needed to share with other players in order to progress, and the review
section seemed like the logical place to do that.. so the users often reviewed
the site while sharing their code to be typed in by other players :)

 _That's_ the way to do it.

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maneesh
which app?

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brianlash
It sounds a lot like one of the Mafia games. I know Mafia Live awarded points
for sharing codes... think iMob did same.

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olihb
Nothing new here. It's SOP for about all PR firms. Social media was the best
thing that could happen to PR firms: they can broadcast their message(or
framing) without interference by the press.

But with all the layoffs in the old press, journalists are overworked so it's
not unusual to have PR releases slightly reworded parading as real articles in
major newspapers and even more so in local ones.

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Alex3917
"It's SOP for about all PR firms."

Not really. Generally a company hires a PR firm on retainer to make
introductions between the entrepreneur and people the entrepreneur would
benefit from knowing... Journalists, bloggers, business partners, etc. The PR
firms then sell you an off-the-shelf media relations plan that includes
services like writing and distributing press releases, doing media buys at
discounted prices, booking trade show booths, etc. They also can help you
develop and execute something bespoke if you're willing to pay for it.

No big PR firm would ever astroturf because their brand is worth more than the
services they provide. And no real firm of any size would ever put it in their
media relations plan for obvious reasons.

You can clearly hire black hat people to do this for you, but it's not like
it's a legitimate PR service.

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olihb
"In all PR firms" was a little too much inclusive... :-)

My comment was based on my experience when I was working for PR firms. Old
school partners struggled to understand social media and asked to interns and
employees to astroturf. Theses experiences made me more cynical of PR firms.

It doesn't help that many businesses in Montréal got caught doing exactly
that. For example, BIXI (self-serve bicycle renting service) created a
supposedly fan made blog and the two authors (which were supposed to be real
fans) didn't even exist. The press had a field day with this.

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matthew-wegner
I don't think this matters all that much. There appears to be very little
correlation between reviews/ratings and sales. This is especially true at
lower price points, which is pretty much everything. Apps might be different,
since I'm basing this on conversations with game developer friends (Touch KO,
Wurdle, others).

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petercooper
I think _negative_ reviews have a far stronger effect than positive, anyway.
If I'm checking out an app that looks good but I see a bunch of negative
reviews about crashing, etc, there's no way I'll buy it.

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njharman
Cheating? Looks like the Free Market at work to me. Ain't it grand, we should
convert all aspects of our society from government, law, economy, health,
environment over to the Free Market. It is _that_ awesome! People with the
most money and power should be able to use it to control the rest of us,
right?

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jmtame
so you're saying that people can be controlled because they lack the foresight
to understand that some reviews could be fake in any given iphone application?
i think that's called ignorance.

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vinutheraj
He is just saying that the _Free Market_ isn't always good in and of itself,
some kind of regulation is always needed, though in an inflammatory tone !

Anyways, what is the proportion of doctored/fake reviews with respect to all
the 5-star reviews of these apps, did anyone get that info ?

