Comments on: Cheating the App Store: PR firm has interns post positive reviews for clients [UPDATED]

By: Barking

Barking — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:14:05 +0000

The companies are not getting around it, this entire (Fake posting) situation was a farce and I know firsthand that the story was planted by, who else, Reverb Communications. I have word from a friend that has contacts both at Reverb and at Mobile Crunch that since the story was written Reverb Communications has had over 1000 new business inquires, companies calling Reverb Communications looking for public relations support for everything from Apple Apps to DS games. This is probably one of the best self centered publicity stunts ever generated by a small company looking to grow and gain new business. Anyone familiar with the Apple Apps store understands that in order to write a review you need a different credit card dedicated to each account, and you have to purchase the app to write the review, Reverb Communications would need hundreds of credit cards and would have needed to spend thousands of dollars to do what they were proposing in this story, it wasn’t possible. It is funny that thousands of companies came calling for their services -

By: SANE

SANE — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:45:36 +0000

Late in reading this. I want Apple to be more on top of potential abuse of reviews. I recently bought an app where clearly something was amuck with the reviews. In this instance I believe it went the opposite way….someone was trashing the app. When I purchased it based on my own personal experience, it was awesome, had none of the issues. Anyway, I’m curious how companies are getting around this if you do in fact have to “purchase” the app via your apple id. Couldn’t they just have a ton of apple IDs and change them randomly?

By: Jumpman

Jumpman — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:08:45 +0000

Oh but its cool to basically buy a score? You are providing gamers false information. Hell, it might as well be considered false advertising. Should be illegal.

By: Jumpman

Jumpman — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:07:12 +0000

Looks like they are at it again with this Obscure game for the PSP

By: Reverb Insider

Reverb Insider — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:59:34 +0000

Tracie Snitker IS DOUG KENNEDY’S PARTNER

YES, THEY ARE LIVING TOGETHER.

By: Anton V.

Anton V. — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:34:33 +0000

You don’t really mean to tell me that all you “network geniuses” just figured it out that there is a certain degree of manipulation regarding message boards, blogposts, or anything that contains user generated content do you? I’ve got a big orange bridge to sell you if that’s the case.

Caveat emptor my friends, the blogosphere has created a world unto itself populated by a million “experts” (i.e. idiots with a computer) that have flooded the web with content & criticism for anything & everything from consumer goods, software, network devices, political views & even restaurant reviews (can’t even trust Yelp anymore with all staged comments btw.)

If you are upset by this going on then boo fucking hoo! You are either just too stupid to have not thought about this yourself sooner or didn’t do your homework & got hoodwinked.

There’s a sucker born every minute Gagan & you’re this hour’s whiner… er I mean, winner.

By: Spike

Spike — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:06:35 +0000

OK, so lets have full disclosure. Who are the interns and what are their screen names and we can read their posts, decide for ourselves, and blast the developers with email telling them why we won’t buy their software. Or if the reviews seem unbiased, we can decide for ourselves.

Ask the, who are the company employees writing such reviews.

By: Tom C.

Tom C. — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:19:00 +0000

Search for any of the 100+ Apps by the developer McApps and you will see rampant self promotion from this LOSER.

By: Jon Simmonds

Jon Simmonds — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:07:10 +0000

at least someone is employing interns!

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:11:39 +0000

Sorry Reverb, but it is ethically untenable that your employees post reviews at all.

If they are paid by your company, which is paid by developers to market their products, then it is unethical for your employees to post reviews – period.

Not with company accounts and not with their own personal accounts.

It’s like asking police officers to serve on the juries of people they have arrested. Or journalists to comment on the politicians they cover. Or asking doctors to take money from drug companies as a reward for pushing their drugs on their patients.

By: David Walker

David Walker — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:22:10 +0000

Their paper says “Reverb employs a small team of interns who are focused on managing online message boards, writing influential game reviews, and keeping a gauge on the online communities.”

Their “disclaimer” written later says “Our interns do not post reviews on iTunes”.

That could technically be true, but if they are telling their clients that their interns post reviews, and if, in fact, those interns don’t post reviews *on iTunes*, then that’s shading the truth pretty badly.

Or else they are lying to someone.

It still sucks.

By: acoward

acoward — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:51:05 +0000

Reverb’s claim of $2B seems way far fetched to me because that’s probably way more than the app store has generated in actual sales.

However, this has been going on for a long time. Since the very beginning. Take a look at the reference app category to see it in action. Some of the top apps are definitely gaming the review system (either with Reverb’s help or independently, I don’t know).

The telltale signs are:

1. The same users constantly update their glowing reviews at every release or “to bury” a negative reviews as they appear.
2. Most of those users have a single review only for that one app
3. Gamed apps have an insanely high number of reviews relative to their rankings/sales. There is a sales->review conversion rate and these apps will show an anomalously high rate.
4. The moderation numbers (this review was helpful or not ratings) are unusually high and uniform (the gap between yays and nays usually hovers around a constant – the number of astroturfers you bought) compared to other apps.

They also game competitors’ reviews by posting negative reviews and gaming the review moderation in reverse to spike the negative reviews.

Again, if you don’t believe me, look at the top few apps in the reference category. At least one of them will be plainly obvious.

Apple would have to be blind not to have noticed this. I’m sure at some level Apple knows about this and have either not decided what to do with it (they are making money off of this after all) or they decided to bury it for as long as they can.

By: Mo

Mo — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:43:13 +0000

How is this news in any way, shape or form? PR firms have been doing this kind of thing since the whole concept of PR began.

By: PC

PC — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:34:17 +0000

In the statement from Reverb: “We also like these games or we wouldn’t take them on as clients” – is comment for real?
Would a PR firm only take on a client if they ‘like’ the game?

By: Soumya Dev

Soumya Dev — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:41:13 +0000

Public Relations is the business of ‘influencing behaviour’ to ‘create preference’, but unflinchingly based on transparent conversations.
The guys who follow any non-transparent practice will definitely be out of business, and also get their clients out of business.
In case, Reverb has actually done so, do you think they would have hired few more interns to comment on this post :) hahaha

By: shayne

shayne — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:35:11 +0000

Hmm. As an app developer this kinda worries and saddens me, although I’ve heard worse (developers deliberately leaving bad reviews of competing apps. Thats just plain shitty) but its probably worth remembering that apps are astroturfed by developers anyway. People leaving positive reviews for their friends apps, and things like that.

That said , Reflex, don’t do this. Your putting your clients at risk, and if the accusations hold true, messing with consumer rationality, and that isn’t cool.

By: LOL

LOL — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:33:41 +0000

(I was speaking to “Wakeupand Dieright”, our resident “legal conflict” expert. LOL)

By: LOL

LOL — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:32:15 +0000

Did you sleep through NY Times v. Sullivan in law school?

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:30:13 +0000

While the law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, the elements of fraud: (1) a representation; (2) falsity of the representation; (3) materiality of the representation; (4) speaker’s knowledge of the falsity of the representation; (5) the speaker’s intent it should be relied upon; (6) the hearer’s ignorance of the falsity of the representation; (7) the hearer’s reliance on the representation; (8) the hearer’s right to rely on the representation; and (9) the hearer’s consequent and proximate injury caused by reliance on the representation

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:26:17 +0000

As if the label “social viral marketing” somehow justifies a paid astroturfing service.

Yeah, and when I take a dump its a “processed nutrition fertilizer packet” that plops in the water…

Hey, I wonder how many “Interns” will be leaving comments here for Reverb Communications? (Well, I mean, they read the story for themselves, and, you know, formed their own conclusions on how to write a comment, so like, it’s all good.)

By: G

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:12:24 +0000

I was just thinking about app store astroturfing a few days ago when considering whether to buy a particular App store app. The app description was written in broken English. There were lots of negative reviews and lots of five star reviews—but all of the 5 star reviews were in broken English! :-) I guess the only way to approach a page of anonymous reviews is to somehow filter out all 1 star and 5 star reviews and any reviewer below a certain threshold of other app reviews. As others have pointed out, you just can’t expect to trust an anonymous system like that.

By: Roberto Sanchez

Roberto Sanchez — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:51:31 +0000

They are not the only one. In Europe this is common practice. Those new crappy web / PR / martketing / buzz agencies doing iPhone stuff since last year do this all the time. Don’t believe reviews, it’s pure s**t.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:35:43 +0000

I noticed this with an app called VoCal. It looks a good app but doesn’t work. Yet there are lots of effusive 5 star reviews – mainly coming from people who have also given the thumbs up to the developer’s other app – Pocket Shamone. Check it out. It’s stupidly blatant and a disgrace.

By: Josh H.

Josh H. — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:52:14 +0000

Awhile ago, I started a Twitter dedicated for stupid app reviews.

Check it out here: http://www.twitter.com/IdiotAppReviews

By: Steven Sacks

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:23:09 +0000

This is old news. 2.5 years old to be precise. And the story was broken by Penny Arcade, of all places.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2006/02/01/