Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, App Store
Fighting sockpuppet reviews on the App Store
In this modern age of information, it's easier than ever to see what people think of a product, whether it be a new lawnmower, a console game, or an App Store app. But it's also easier than ever to try and tweak public opinion, and while there are many official avenues that will accept anonymous opinions, there aren't so many that will help you weed out the legit from the not-so-much.App Store reviews have been controversial from the beginning -- while they can be helpful for buyers, you often have no idea just who's leaving comments or what their real agenda is. Njection, the makers of Nmobile (which we played with a while ago) are having a huge problem with what they're calling "sockpuppet" reviews on the App Store.
Someone (they believe this person is in cahoots with their competitor) is posting bad reviews on their app and trying to trash them and their product elsewhere (including in a comment here on TUAW). And unfortunately, as they say, they don't really have much recourse against this behavior -- they've appealed to Apple, who've replied that they'll leave comments up, unless they're offensive or extremely false. Apple's own guidelines for reviewing apps asks that the reviewers deal with apps on their own merit rather than attacking competitors, but that seems to be more of a recommendation than a firm rule.
Njection says the comments have kept consumers from trying out their apps, though it seems difficult to actually track how many people haven't tried your app (and why). It'll be interesting to see if Apple makes other changes to the review system if this sort of thing rears its ugly head more often. At this point, it seems devs just have to deal with it by doing damage control when necessary and making their app good enough that "sockpuppeting" doesn't strongly affect public opinion.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
conigs said 10:17AM on 2-03-2009
Not to be overly negative, but welcome to the Internet. This is hardly limited to reviews of iPhone Apps.
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jopari said 10:21AM on 2-03-2009
I just read the comments in the linked article and all the negitive comments seem to be valid concerns. Can they honestly expect people to pay for an app when there's a free alternative with identical functuality? Look at Virtualbox versus VMWare-both applications have the same features, though Virtualbox is free and VMWare is (I think) around $50. Do you see VMWare telling blogs to stop reccommending the free product? No, instead they choose to spend their time innovating and making a product worth paying for. Njection's time would be much better served by trying to do the same instead of what they're doing now, which is being a bunch of petty whiners.
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Blinding Dawn said 10:43AM on 2-03-2009
I think the idea was not to complain but to bring to light the issue. They have been working on an upgrade for 2 month to combat this issue.
Chapster said 11:42AM on 2-03-2009
Hey, Chip from Trapster here. It's funny but comment number 3 from Blinding Dawn is actually Shannon from Njection sockputteting jpoari while pretending to be coming out against sockpuppeting. I can't stop laughing.
Blinding Dawn said 11:48AM on 2-03-2009
Excuse my use of the word "They" instead of "We". It still doesn't negate the facts of the article.
Steven said 10:27AM on 2-03-2009
I thought Apple changed the comment policy a while back, so that could only write a review if you actualy bought the app. If you want to smear your competitor, than you have to pay at least $0,99.
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Gazoobee said 10:40AM on 2-03-2009
There is a slight error in the article.
This:
"... it seems difficult to actually track how many people haven't tried your app (and why)..."
should read:
"... it's *impossible* to actually track how many people haven't tried your app (and why)..."
"conigs" comment above pretty much says it all. Welcome to the Internet indeed. Also, no one seems to complain when an app gets inordinate "sock-puppet" *positive* reviews, why should this be any different.
Finally, the fact that this is an app that helps people to evade the law sure doesn't endear me to their cause either. Speeding kills and that's a fact but inattention kills even more. Checking out their silly little program on your iPhone while driving is not only against the law in a lot of places, it is almost *guaranteed* to cause more accidents. My advice is to save your money, drive normally, obey the speed limit and you will never have to worry about getting tickets (or killing anyone) at all.
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Jon Rorshach said 10:58AM on 2-03-2009
This story is such pants I wouldn't bother reading it if it wasn't for the sockpuppets dey r soo cool! :-P
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marcoiac said 10:55AM on 2-03-2009
With regard to App Store, this problem can be easily solved by allowing a 3-day trial period for ANY app, so that people can try the app themselves and have a truly informed opinion without relying on reviews that may or may not be truthful
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Jamie said 11:02AM on 2-03-2009
"making their app good enough that "sockpuppeting" doesn't strongly affect public opinion."
Erm... shouldn't all developers be making the best application they can anyway, not just to avoid sockpuppeting?
Looks to me like these guys are just whiners, quit complaining about so called bad reviews and make you app better.
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albe said 11:27AM on 2-03-2009
In my experience (with 5 apps for sale), you will get some bad reviews that don't seem genuine...I have had competitors write reviews, for instance.
However, in my experience the reviews tend to be pretty honest...not all of my apps are of the same quality...the lesser quality apps definitely get poorer reviews.
to the comment about making the best app you can...it's not economically feasable to do that on the first release -- just because you think an app is a good idea doesn't mean it will sell.
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Tom Neff said 11:26AM on 2-03-2009
Obsession with "sockpuppets" is an old (but still powerful) Internet trap. It gives you a magic answer for anything you don't want to hear: "Yeah but who are you really??" So much more fun playing Web detective than doing your regular job.
I don't know anything about this particular app, but it does seem reasonable for a reviewer of a pay app to mention free alternatives.
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timbemo said 11:28AM on 2-03-2009
What is this? Slashdot?
Is no one actually reading the article?
He's not complaining about bad reviews. He's complaining about a competitor putting up bad reviews. It's a smear campaign, not a valid negative review.
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KarlW said 11:49AM on 2-03-2009
The easiest way to deal with these would be to use Apple's DRM to enable timed trials of the software. Reviews would have less of a negative impact, as people could download the app for free and give it a try.
It's hard to get a view of how good a product is from the AppStore description. Trials could be an opt-in for app developers, and would let people get a proper idea of how good an App is.
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Tom Neff said 11:54AM on 2-03-2009
Actually he was complaining about ONE bad review, and guessing it must be from his competitor because that reviewer gave a good review to the free competition. Maybe so (or maybe not, I've seen fan reviews like that), but that's not a sockpuppet campaign. It seems that Apple has removed reviews before, so if this were a real problem I suspect they'd deal with it.
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Jesse David Hollington said 12:01PM on 2-03-2009
False reviews from both a negative and positive point is a very common trend, but to be fair, the iTunes App Store has managed to do the best they can to minimize this with their current policies...
Firstly, you have to actually *buy* the App to post a review (or at least download it, if it's a free app). Secondly, your reviews are tied to your iTunes Store account, and although you can use whatever nickname you want to have displayed, this is dynamically tied to all of your reviews -- if you change your nickname, it gets updated on everything you've reviewed in the past.
Further, you cannot post more than *one* review for a given app. If you try to post a second review, iTunes opens up your original review for editing, rather than allowing you to post a second one.
So the only way that anybody could truly orchestrate a smear campaign or astroturfing campaign for a given app would be to setup multiple iTunes Store accounts, each with separate gift cards or credit cards, and then purchase the app with each one of those accounts so that you could leave separate comments.
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Ben of BenandJacq said 1:33PM on 2-03-2009
I'm not sure how widespread this sockpuppeting is. Sure, one or two per app is to be expected both ways, positively or negatively. but if an app has 100+ reviews, how many of those are fake? I have never been misled by the overall picture painted for an app. But that may be because I mainly go for free apps, and I don't care about the reviews. But even the ones that I have paid for have all proven to live up to the reviews.
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Chris Pratt said 2:49PM on 2-03-2009
Sounds like crying over sour milk to me. Trapster was already well established in the App Store when Njection's app landed there, and the complaint is valid. Since Trapster is older and free, it has a much larger user base than Njection's app and probably will continue to. Since both apps depend on active user involvement for their apps, it's a definite win for Trapster.
Having bad reviews or even "sock puppet" reviews is the least of Njection's problems. They've either got to introduce some innovative and impressive feature to their app to distinguish it from Trapster or drop the app. Sometimes, you just won't be #1... get over it.
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Brian said 7:45PM on 2-03-2009
What I really hate is all the worthless trash people put up as "reviews" on the App Store. Go have a look at Super Monkey Ball Lite. The top customer review there says, "Dear sega. Please make Crazy Taxi for iPhone/iPod touch. That would be sick. Click yes if you agree". So far, 255 people have agreed, and clicked "Yes" to "Was this review helpful?"
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m said 6:27PM on 2-03-2009
i wish there were a rule preventing tuaw from posting sycophantic reviews of iphone apps. where is your journalistic neutrality? oh, i forgot: this is a blog.
and seriously, the kind of intervention on behalf of developers you're asking for is the kind of intervention that makes reviews on travelocity and expedia useless. i had a review removed from both sites once that complained of the bedbugs in my hotel room. it wasn't a valid complaint, apparently.
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