There’s not really any shortage of ways to find out what others think about an app before you shell out the cash, but none are really without their faults. Each major smartphone platform’s App Store has a review system built in — but with more and more tales of people trying to game the system coming out each day, it’s tough to trust a faceless stranger. App review social networks like Chorus call upon a network of people you know — but they require you (and your friends, for that matter) to sign up for a whole new network.
After finding a small audience after launching back in March, social app discovery site Mobspot thinks they’ve found the answer: a Facebook application. No new social network to sign up for, no new site to go to, and all the results are from a group you know and (hopefully) trust. So is it faultless?
Not exactly. Before I dive into it, I’ve gotta give Mobspot credit for pulling off a pretty impressive feat. Most non-iTunes App Review sources all have one inherent problem: purchase verification, or the lack thereof. iTunes doesn’t offer up any official way for these sites to verify that any given reviewer has actually purchased the app, so reviews could be a bunch of non-sense from a developer pumping his own app or the competition railing it, no purchase necessary. The Mobspot Facebook app, however, manually scans your iTunes library for apps sitting on your computer — if you don’t have it, you can’t review it.
Now, back to the question of faultlessness: this App isn’t without its own. It’s something that’s only truly useful once it’s massively successful (enough so that you’ll have friends using it right off the bat), which inherently limits it from being massively successful. It’s sort of a niche-within-a-niche-within-a-niche. It’s for Facebook users who carry smartphones — admittedly a pretty massive group. Within that group, it’s most useful amongst friends who carry the same smartphone — and within that, it’s for people interested in installing an application for sharing their opinion on apps. Even if you have a few hundred friends, it seems like only a handful would be left after all this criteria is met — at which point, you might as well have just posted something to your wall asking for App advice.
With that said: if a user is willing to be vocal about the application and get their friends into it, the idea is sound. Turning to friends to get opinions is a great means of getting trustworthy reviews, as long as you can get said friends to pipe up.
Check out the Mobspot Facebook app here. It’s currently for iPhone apps only, though they plan to support all the other major platforms (as the primary Mobspot site already does) in the future. And be sure to tell your friends.
nice work, but Msft is working on some even better social stuff people!
I know one of the principals at Mobspot and was fortunate enough to be in the test group for the app. REALLY excited that it’s finally launched.
I think the article underestimates the power of viral. Even drilling down into 20 people on your network – imagine that times millions, which is the potential on a site with the depth that Facebook has.
Great idea, on iTunes I have no real idea who is giving reviews or what my friends like.
I have been following Mobspot since the start as I know one of the founders. I knew it was a great idea from the start. I have wasted enough money on crappy apps. GO MOBSPOT!!
So easy and quick to use, why wouldn’t people already on Facebook sign up? Much easier to click on a link to the app immediately on FB then go search for it on my phone later and hope I downloaded the app that I was actually looking for.
Time will show how usefull is that app. I think this one is OK
Great news regarind the Facebook app. However, I think the ‘regualar’ mobspot is powerful in itself! I love that i can get reviews about apps across platforms.
Appoke also offers social app recommendations, but it’s not restricted to Facebook friends, you can also see the best apps of someone you follow on Twitter. It is currently in private beta.
I don’t agree with the article’s suggestion that this app has a fault that other mobile app recommendation services do not have.
The “fault” described above is in my opinion the best feature of Mobspot. By having this run on the Facebook Platform, you’ve already got your social network ready to go – no need to make a new account and or find/add friends – that’s huge.
I’m looking forward to seeing where this thing goes.
App Popular Recommendations has been submitted to Apple and will hopefully be approved in a week.
it will be easier if all apps have demo version for us to try
I have tried appazaar for app recommendations on Androd.. its cool!
Why not just allow user to build lists of things they like or dislike the most and share them with their friends or everybody? That’s the purpose of Top It!, a simple FB app. There’s still a long way to go but sometimes the simplest ideas are also the best ones.
Mobspot is working hard to further the social/viral grid for you app-ters, techy technocrats and beginners — so appreciate it, embrace it and use it.
Get up on that!