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Ask HN: Should I pay $50 for a positive App review?
In trying to promote my recently released iPhone app, I sent emails to several App Review sites with a blurb and a promo code for a free copy. One of the sites got back to me and said they have a huge backlog of apps to review, but they could guarantee mine a review for $50. Furthermore, if the review wasn't positive, they said they wouldn't publish it and they'd give me my money back.
First of all, is this standard practice in the App world? I had seen reports that this is common on domain registrar / hosting review sites but had no idea iPhone app review sites were working on payola also.
Second of all, is this a worthwhile investment? This is my first app and as an independent developer I don't have an advertising budget to speak of, but positive reviews seem to be really valuable for gaining exposure, and this site ranks high on Google searches (this was actually one of the selling points they mentioned). Maybe $50 is a small amount compared to how much traffic this might bring? On the other hand, I don't want to do business with a site that is dishonest to its readers, and there are other review sites out there that may run a review without asking for cash in return.
Thanks in advance for your advice!
- aristus 18y agoI would not pay, as a matter of pride and taste. I have a strong dislike for influence peddlers. Instead, ask your friends to review it on Apple's site. Promote it yourself. Advertise on Google and set the ads to show on the same sites you are talking about.
- tptacek 18y agoAsk your friends to review it? How is that ethically superior to just paying for the review?
- aristus 18y agoI didn't mention ethics, only pride and taste.
- potatolicious 18y agoWell, your friends aren't getting paid, and if you explicitly declare that you want their honest opinion, and that a bad review would in no way impact their relationship with you, then there's no ethical problem. Ethics only becomes an issue where you're paying someone to be dishonest about your product.
- tptacek 18y agoThe ethical issue here is that a review should convey the good-faith impression of an unbiased user.
- bprater 18y agoThere is no standard anything anymore -- everyone is playing with business models left-and-right. As long as they clearly tell end-users how reviews are done, they could be using monkeys to write the reviews on papyrus. Can you ask them what kind of traffic they are bringing in -- and how much of the traffic leaves the site on the way to iTunes? If they can answer that question for you (and providing proof would be a bonus!), it would be an easier question to answer. (I'd apply a formula like: 50 visitors on average go thru to iTunes after reading a link. 10% buy. That's 5 buyers. If your app is $10, you end up breaking even.)
- jonknee 18y agoYou should pull a Dreamhost and out this site. They are dishonest and should be called out. http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/05/04/web-hostings-dirty-laundry/ http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/05/04/web-hostings-dirty-laun...
- bprater 18y agoIt is now a crime to do a paid review for someone? If so, can you point me to the law stating this? If not, then you are making a big assumption and could hurt someone's business by blasting all over the internet "just how morally corrupt this person is".
- gjm11 18y agoCrime? No. But the whole point of a review site is the implicit promise to readers: "We will tell you whether this is any good or not". If what they actually do is to publish only positive reviews, for a fee, then they are deceiving their readers into thinking that advertisements are reviews. Sure it's legal. All kinds of things are legal. Some legal things are harmful and dishonest, and should be exposed.
- endtwist 18y agoYou're completely missing the point. There is a huge difference between illegal and dishonest. As far as I know, yes, it isn't illegal to pay for a published review but it surely is a dishonest business practice. At the very minimum, this website is probably deceiving their readers by publishing these so-called "positive" reviews.
- tspiteri 18y agoThey are careful with words; they are only saying that they would not publish a negative review. They are not directly promising a positive review. But it would cost them $50 not to publish a positive review, so they are very likely to publish an undeserved positive.
- jonknee 18y agoI never said anything about a crime. Reviews are only worthwhile if they are honest. I believe that any site caught soliciting pay to play for positive reviews should be called out. Not sued, just publicly shamed. It goes both ways, Belkin caught tons of flack for soliciting positive reviews on Amazon Mechanical Turk.
- jasonlbaptiste 18y agoa) is it disclosed? If it's disclosed as a sort of paid advertisement, then it's okay. It's more of an ad, than a review. b) what's their traffic? See if there really is a "backlog of apps to review". c) Be concerned that they will only publish it if it's a positive review. That means they're only doing this if it's favorable. d) What other apps are there? If it's third rate apps that look like they can only get a positive review if paid, then id abandon it. Everyone is going to have their own opinion on this. No one is right or wrong, this is just my point of view. I hope it helps.
- RobGR 18y agoI agree with the disclosure rule. Look through their current reviews; do any of them mention pay, or even be vague about it, such as "we were asked to review this application" or something ? If not, then what you want to do is "pull a dreamhost" with a post on your own web site. Then post that here, and on reddit and on slashdot etc -- the resulting traffic may be more than this site could give you, and your conscience will certainly be clearer.
- Zev 18y agoNone of the ads mention that the reviews were paid for.
- tptacek 18y agoYou appear to lack the business sense to point us to your iPhone app with this question. ;)
- timf 18y agoIt is listed in his profile (which I though was the more accepted approach here).
- brandnewlow 18y agoHell no don't pay. That's crap, for all the reasons you mentioned. How many blogs have you sent your info to? 10? You should be sending it to 100. I publish a tech blog. We're small but publish on Google News. Hit us up. Can't guarantee we'll review it. If we do and it stinks we'll say so. If we do and it's awesome, we'll say so.
- silencio 18y agodon't do it. we (colloquy, the irc client) submitted promo codes and requests to review to multiple people and review sites, and there was only one website who did exactly what you state. none of the rest wanted payment of any sort (ars technica, tuaw, daring fireball, etc.) and were all too happy to mention and review the app. We've gotten more money from iTunes affiliate links to the application on our page (http://mobile.colloquy.info http://mobile.colloquy.info) than in sales from most of the iPhone-specific review sites that we could see. We've also probably made more sales promoting ourselves and providing support on Twitter. (Also, for what it's worth this site in question seems to be super slow if you don't pay up $50 or pay for advertising, it's been a little over two weeks with nothing whatsoever. the promo code we sent will probably expire before they review, heh.)
- charlesju 18y agoTotally unrelated to anything. 1. I love your program. 2. I just bought your iPhone application because you guys deserve at least that much from me.
- menloparkbum 18y agoI also love this game, I used to play the card-based version all the time. I'm just pissed off that you made it for the iPhone before I did! Edit: whoops, I was talking about the OP's game! But, I also love your IRC client. I didn't know it was available for the iPhone, I'll have to check that out...
- silencio 18y agohaha, not flaming us for charging for an open source app? :) thanks though!
- evdawg 18y agoHey, nothing wrong with charging for open source! It's win-win: you get compensated for your great work and we enjoy the benefits of having the source code freely available. Thank you.
- 18y ago
- vaksel 18y agoThrow up a quick blog post talking about this trend for apps. In the post make sure to talk about your app. Then promote the post on reddit/digg and let other blogs know about it. You'll get more exposure for your app than a mere blog post on a 3rd rate blog(gotta be 3rd rate if they only want $50 for a positive post). And who knows, you might get some of those big name blogs to cover your story as an example of how their particular blog is so much better than others that charge money for good stories.
- gscott 18y agoReviewMe.com specializes in this, they do not promise positive reviews just a review.
- bisi 18y agoThere is no right way or wrong way in business . There is only one way - The way that makes money .. If I told that I paid $50 to a review site and it brought me $5000 . Will you ask anybody if you should pay $50 to bring in $5000 ? Big Corporation pay celebrities money to give favourable reviews and endorsments all the time . Nike will only pay Tiger Woods Millions to give a good endorsement . They would be fools to give Tiger Millions to give his honest opinion . Its business .. The only way you will make money from your products or service is to get good reviews . If you are asking people for reviews and they are giving you bad reviews you will never make money .. This is part of marketing .. Your number one goal in buisness should be to make money .. If you will lose the $50 then its not a good investment but if you will make money then thats pretty much all that matters .. THERE IS NO CRIME BEING COMMITED. Its just business ..
- diN0bot 18y agothe right way is "making money for a long time". plenty of dishonest businesses make a lot of short-term money. the really good players are in it for the long haul, which frequently means honesty, decency and sustainability.
- cellis 18y agoI so wish this were true. Sadly, there are innumerable corporations that are dishonest and have been around for decades.
- ErrantX 18y agoIf you can get more the $50 of sales from it then pay. So long as your not paying for them to give you a positive review (it's a leap of faith I guess) then it's hardly a huge misdemeanor.
- ja2ke 18y agoIf that site makes a practice out of bribing developers out of money for positive ad scores, they will eventually get outed, and (I imagine) will eventually die. Joe consumer probably doesn't give a crap if some iPhone app site charges $50, but other tech journalists, and hardcore/cutting-edge users definitely care, and those are the people who drive that site's pagerank and reputability through linking to and discussing it.
- GHFigs 18y agoI don't want to do business with a site that is dishonest to its readers Then don't give them an incentive to be.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- bbalfour 18y agoNot worth it. My company, Viximo, has created numerous applications including our most popular TrueFlirt. We've had a number of reviews on the top application review sites (unpaid and unsolicited) and the resulting downloads is very minimal. Most consumers of applications don't really read those sites.
- lallysingh 18y agoI had this situation (astroturfing for sale, which is what this really is) back when I was a Palm Developer. Does anyone read their reviews? Do you look at their reviews when thinking about buying an app? I usually find the answer to be no to both these questions.