BlackBerry® World™ Development

[silver20]

So I updated an app and it was finally starting to sell, and then someone posted a review just saying it "doesn't work" and there hasn't been a sale since...  even though there are good reviews right below that one.

The customer probably figures the good reviews are actually marketing from the developer, and that the whole thing is just a scam and it's a non-working app, too much of a risk to buy.

Clicked "Deny Review", but 2 days later it's still there.  The app had reached the top 25 of its category in Top Paid, but after a couple of days of zero sales it's nowhere; basically the app was murdered by a single bad review.

Maybe it will later be resurrected, but what if we could get automatic email notification when negative reviews are posted, respond to reviews, and strike them immediately?

Most of the reviews like this pop up without ever hearing from the customer.

[QuiteSimple]

I feel your pain. Especially bad reviews posted on Friday - 3 days till Monday and someone eventually checks the ticket.

It's probably not a fair play, but having three different phones at home gives me at least a chance to counterstrike... Positive review over the negative one usually mitigates the negative impact.

Not to mention situation, where a competitor posts bad review on purpose just to kill your app (yes, it happened in the past)

[silver20]

It does look suspicious when someone reviews, "Doesn't work!" or "Bricked my phone, DO NOT DOWNLOAD!!!", but never contacts you.

Sometimes in the past I posted initial reviews to get things started on a positive note, and occasionally to correct negative perceptions, but now they show the ID and I don't feel like creating multiple accounts or soliciting other people to leave positive reviews. It is tempting, though, because surely some of the competition are doing that.

Still don't understand how others get so many reviews; I've started putting a "Review this App" button and menu item in, but it's not working; I probably get 1 review per 10,000 downloads.

If there were more reviews, then there would be less impact from a single bad review; but when there are only a handful overall, the customer figures the good ones are from shills and there could be 1000 bad ones that have been stricken.

[smiley]

Man! i'm in the same boat.  I get the app doesn't work and 0 star.  The worst is when you deny the review and then it is the weekend.  It takes RIM guys 5 days to approve the deny which then leaves me 0 sales.

Either the user is too dumb to just send support an email to help or just p*ssed and don't care.

RIM will never add send automatic review but they do send you support feedback.

the crappy part is when you get customer like this with bad review and they send you email and then you help them to fix the problem and then you ask them to review the app? guess what they can't retrack the bad review.

[smiley]

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silver20 wrote:

Still don't understand how others get so many reviews; I've started putting a "Review this App" button and menu item in, but it's not working; I probably get 1 review per 10,000 downloads.

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Some devs publish their apps as free to get good reviews and then switch to paid others bribe users to download and give 5* reviews in exchange for free codes. I see this first hand.  Others do have good apps and their ratings are legit.

[QuiteSimple]

Meh, what a luck, third Friday in a row I get a negative review for the same app. Are people just pissed off because it is Friday? Or it is more than just coincidence?

"That sucks just a waste of my money.it makes no sense at all." (this Friday)

"I don't like this app" (last Friday)

"Don't buy this!!! Sucks. Changes your email passwords so your email doesn't come to your phone" (the Friday before - actually my favorite review so far, the app has nothing to do with mails)

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smiley wrote:

Some devs publish their apps as free to get good reviews

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I used this approach for my latest app. It was free for about three months, roughly 500 downloads per day, after three months: 45 reviews for 45000 downloads, so the ratio is 1:1000. After I switched it to paid I got 5 negative reviews in just 3 days, lol

[Ebscer]

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QuiteSimple wrote:

"Don't buy this!!! Sucks. Changes your email passwords so your email doesn't come to your phone" (the Friday before - actually my favorite review so far, the app has nothing to do with mails)

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Sometimes I wonder if users are not just leaving the review on the wrong app. Occationally you really get the feeling that they are talking about something else all together...

[smiley]

I don't get the review system at all.  If we request to deny a review it will be done by rim eventually so why don't rim give us the power to deny right at the spot instead of days and lose sales.

The problem with appworld also for simple changes like description and screen shot.  why do they need to review it for days?

btw: i to 0 start rating today.  the guy said "don't buy it" and say it doesn't run on the 9810.  Probably he didn't realize that he needed another BBM user to play the game.  Now it wont get denied until next week cuz the weekend.

[error454]

This thread struck a chord with me since I've experienced these issues in every app market to date. I wrote a blog article summarizing this as one of many problems I see with markets in general, this seems to fit into the Segregation and Lack of Developer Control section.

I hope Blackberry is listening, they have an opportunity to do the opposite of every other app market, i.e. not punish the developer.

[silver20]

At a footnote, even after that bad review was denied, the app still hasn't recovered much.  However it works, there seems to be a momentum factor, probably from positioning in Top Paid.

I'm at the point where I'd vote "aye" to completely do away with reviews and ratings, and rely on developer reputation and free trials.

Right now, let's say you got into a car accident and were in a coma for 2 months... when you wake up, on top of your other damage, you've also lost most of your income because you weren't able to keep up with denying reviews.

Save the comatose app developers... get rid of ratings & reviews!