In the fine tradition of lazily naming any sort of controversy after Watergate, I hereby present AppGate. It seems that certain iPhone App developers are paying low-rent “review” sites for favorable reviews, thereby creating the false impression that their App is cool and everything.
Wired gets the gold stat for unearthing this scandal, which has centered on two sites (so far), ThePhoneAppReview.com and AppCraver.com. The gist of it is that these sites charge App developers for the “privilege” of being reviewed. You want us to review your App? Sure, just give us $X-Amount first. That is literally the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, and I don’t use the word “literally” in the watered down sense of the word. No, I mean it’s the Billy Madison most insanely idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.
The money comes in one of a few forms. Sites will charge developers in order to “expedite” any review. So, Site A asks Joe Developer for $X-Amount in order to review his App before it reviews Jane Developer’s App. (Funny story: I remember once being asked by a public relations person where their App review was in my review queue. Amazing, considering I don’t have an iPhone and never agreed to any App review in the first place!)
Sometimes a site will say, “Well, we’ll review your App, but you need to pay in order to help defray the costs of writing said review.” If that’s the case, an App developer should merely say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Then again, I’m not an iPhone App developer, so I don’t know the pressures these folks are under to get the word out there about their cool new App.
That’s why you should only support sites who abide by the Organization of App Testing Standards (OATS) excluding Touch Arcade. The sites who belong to this organization NEVER behave in such a journalistically awful way.
One should be careful on this one, you don’t want to be that person being scammed, for sure.
When we launched our job search app last year (http://linkup.com/iphone/), we spent a couple days tracking down every review site because we were excited to show off our new shiny toy! We couldn’t believe it when like 90% of the sites we submitted to wanted to be paid for reviewing a free app – anywhere from $50 to $1,000!
And in the end, there isn’t any traffic that’s going to come from any of these review sites that’s worth the time it takes to fill out a contact form. I really think that the future of app-discovery lies more in the Android tool AppAware (http://appaware.org/) and the iPhone tool Appsfire (http://itunes.apple.com/app/appsfire/id326419536?mt=8).
That’s hardly new.
It’s been like that for Windows software and some of the big download sites (download.com, etc) for a decade or more now.
I am the Editor-in-Chief of The iPhone App Review and I’d like to straighten a few things out:
1) Our writers are paid regardless of the outcome of a review. Good or Bad – they get paid. I delegate the expedited jobs and thus there is a total disconnect between developers and the writing staff. There is no incentive to embellish and thus no conflict of interest. There are many examples of apps receiving scores lower than 50%. The reviews are 100% honest – and that’s all our readers care about.
2) The so-called “ethical” sites ONLY review popular apps – as these apps drive traffic. Start-ups and Mom & Pop developers do NOT get a look in. We provide coverage to these guys for a very small fee, that covers the cost of staffing that coverage and not much else.
3) The idea that we “shun” developers who won’t pay an expedite fee is absurd and just plain wrong. Half the reviews on The iPhone App Review were non-expedited – NO fee whatsoever.
4) The author mentioned in this witchunt of a post is no longer with The iPhone App Review because of emails like the one featured. Our writers no longer deal with app developers directly.
5) The moral high ground that some app review sites are taking here is laughable. Members of the “OATS” make a proceed of every sale of apps in their reviews, as well as running editorial and advertising campaigns in parallel.
I’m afraid articles like this are heavily biased and only show half the story. I welcome your feedback.
Shaun Campbell
Editor-in-Chief
The iPhone App Review
that’s lame
Our site is just launching with one focus as wireless biz process apps. Our team just plain tired of seeing glowing reports we knew to be untrue. Soon-to-be launched apps pages will feature the real, the reliable, and the audited ROIs. OATS (Organization of App Testing Standards) gets my vote also.
If you are a developer and you are relying on app review sites (or simply being on the app store) to get the word out about your app you are screwed. Remember something called the internet and marketing. If your app is a unique idea (and not some gimmick), then develop a full blown marketing plan and target consumers direct on the internet. When you build a new website you have to do the same thing. This what technical developers do who have an unoriginal idea and think that getting on the app store and submitting to a few review sites will do the trick. Building an app and marketing it is like building a website (anyone can create a site, just like anyone can make an app) its the marketing that is the hard part. Forget the shortcuts. Look at the likes of Shazam that was a great unique app that has spread virally (and has been around for years as an SMS based service in the U.K) they started off by showing it to people in bars etc. So go bottom up and work at it, not send out a press release to a few sites and hope that will do the trick.
Good advice! We’re launching our latest app, Paprika (http://getpaprika.com), and are developing a similar marketing plan. A grassroots approach seems more stable than relying on app review sites, plus people know you’re genuine when you work hard at promoting your app instead of relying on others to do it. (Although we can’t deny that coverage from review sites is nice!)
I couldn’t agree more about App Review sites thinking they can charge for reviews. It defeats the whole object of earning a valid 3rd party review.
I think that we should all club together and insist that they pay us not expose their wicked ways – infact let’s just blow their cover.
With that all said and done – even if you have a gr8 app, like our Dingbats game – customers giving rave reviews, we’ve been in Top 5 Paid Word Games in iTunes since Nov 09 – submission to 50 review sites – but only 3 reviews!
It’s time someone comes up with a better way to help get apps out there without paying.
Any ideas – thanks Ben
-Sent via TechCrunch App
I agree with Eric. When we released our app and sent it to reviewers, they usually gave us 2 options:
Option One: Standard review (translation for we will never get to it)
Option Two: Expedited review (translation for we will post a review on our website for x amount of $$$)
Many developers dive right into this trap because they are desperately seeking to be noticed in a congested App Store. Some reviewers are making out like bandits earning hundreds of dollars a day from developers that already spent a boat load developing their app.
Is this really that surprising? I was in the console gaming biz before moving to mobile four years ago, and even in a (console) environment in which there are far fewer games/apps to be reviewed, game reviewers were already slammed for time. Now that it’s so easy for just about anyone to build an app and submit it for review on multiple sites, I can’t imagine how editorial staffs keep up. When I submitted an app for review a year or so ago I happily paid $50 a pop on a couple of sites and would have paid more in some situations. I think that’s a fair price to pay to cover the cost of the intern who’s filtering all the submissions. Does anyone really think these submission fees are huge profit centers? And so what if they are? Review sites offer free (although I didn’t say high impact) marketing to app developers–I’m happy to help keep them in business with a few bucks here and there.
That is terrible!
This story reminds me about that the famous FTC requirement for review sites to provide a clear indication that a certain review was actually sponsored by a certain company. But where is the sense in this story at all? I mean a review should be something written completely independently from a product or service owner in financial terms. When I go to Cnet.com to digg up for some review about scanners to make a decision about what scanner should I buy to scan films I don’t want to read reviews being sponsored by Canon, Epson and so forth. It does not make any sense. Period.
we’ve released an app a couple of weeks ago (http://southlabs.com/detail.aspx?id=SmartUnits) and we’ve been approached by at least three different companies offering review packages and “silent auctions”.
We haven´t paid none of them still, but also we haven´t received almost any review given freely, as a response to our request. So I´m not sure is wrong taking into account the number of apps being released, I only wished the whole process was more transparent, and I knew beforehand how many pageviews, and eyeballs & clicks that one review is paying.
I cannot find a review anywhere for this Red Dwarf App…
I hear it is good?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CIPrEowZrU
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/red-dwarf-the-dibblifier/id362313379?mt=8
We reviewed it :) -> http://www.slapapp.com/red-dwarf-dibblifier