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Facebook's App Center has a distinct advantage over alternatives: they have much more information on the users of their apps. Also, because ratings are based on

by yangez 14y ago

Facebook's App Center has a distinct advantage over alternatives: they have much more information on the users of their apps. Also, because ratings are based on real names, they'll have a much easier time preventing ratings spam. Because of this, Facebook has the potential to develop a more accurate app recommendation engine and solve the problem of app discovery. If Facebook can make their platform more merit-based than the capricious Apple App Store, both users and developers will flock to them. And this isn't even considering Facebook's social graph. Not only could Facebook recommend apps based on your demographics + interests, it could also recommend them to you based on how much you previously liked the games that some of your OTHER friends liked. Things like this could add a whole new dimension to app discovery - all completely exclusive to the Facebook platform.

magicalist 14y ago
> Facebook's App Center has a distinct advantage over alternatives: they have much more information on the users of their apps. Also, because ratings are based on real names, they'll have a much easier time preventing ratings spam. How bad is the ratings spam problem? (I'm not a mobile app developer) Don't Apple and Google require a credit card to have an account, which means there's at least some barrier to making accounts to spam? They also have data on if a user actually downloaded an app they're rating, if they've made many ratings before or if this is a brand new account, etc. Meanwhile, there are already "Like" farms that you can pay to boost like counts on Facebook for your content. It seems like if there's motivation to spam ratings, Facebook won't have a great advantage over the problem.
- cageface 14y ago
  You don't actually need a credit card to open an iTunes account now. You didn't need one when I opened a Google account either and I don't think that's changed.
- sad_panda 14y ago
  Google accounts don't require CC numbers.
vijayr 14y ago
Facebook's App Center has a distinct advantage over alternatives: they have much more information on the users of their apps. Also, because ratings are based on real names, they'll have a much easier time preventing ratings spam. Amazon distinguishes the reviews from people who actually bought the item they are reviewing from other reviews, I generally read only those. Probably Apple and Google could do the same, might help them a bit in reducing comment spam

by yangez 14y ago

magicalist 14y ago

> Facebook's App Center has a distinct advantage over alternatives: they have much more information on the users of their apps. Also, because ratings are based on real names, they'll have a much easier time preventing ratings spam. How bad is the ratings spam problem? (I'm not a mobile app developer) Don't Apple and Google require a credit card to have an account, which means there's at least some barrier to making accounts to spam? They also have data on if a user actually downloaded an app they're rating, if they've made many ratings before or if this is a brand new account, etc. Meanwhile, there are already "Like" farms that you can pay to boost like counts on Facebook for your content. It seems like if there's motivation to spam ratings, Facebook won't have a great advantage over the problem.

cageface 14y ago
You don't actually need a credit card to open an iTunes account now. You didn't need one when I opened a Google account either and I don't think that's changed.
sad_panda 14y ago
Google accounts don't require CC numbers.

vijayr 14y ago

Facebook's App Center has a distinct advantage over alternatives: they have much more information on the users of their apps. Also, because ratings are based on real names, they'll have a much easier time preventing ratings spam. Amazon distinguishes the reviews from people who actually bought the item they are reviewing from other reviews, I generally read only those. Probably Apple and Google could do the same, might help them a bit in reducing comment spam