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AppGratis Is Nothing More Than A Black Hat Marketing Company

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Re: AppGratis Is Nothing More Than A Black Hat Marketing Company

#21

Post by dooq »

NathanKP wrote: post #10

I completely agree that the app store environment would be better without paid promotion from companies like AppGratis. However, I would also agree with the CEO of AppGratis in his post when he said that the app discovery process through the app store is broken. There have been numerous times when I've been searching for a good app in a particular category and the app store search results are very bad. For example tr…

Yep, apple completely wrecked the app store discovery process with iOS 6. It's a real shame IMO.

Re: AppGratis Is Nothing More Than A Black Hat Marketing Company

#22

Post by cooldeal »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #20

>as a user I want to be able to find the best apps for my task. Quality apps. Apps that will help me achieve whatever it is I'm doing. And I want Apple to decide that Why? Anyway it's abundantly clear that Apple is failing at that task, especially with new changes to the way search results are displayed.

Everytime there's a discussion about the walled garden, people say that it's to prevent malware, but Apple is going way beyond that by forcing a cut of in-app purchases, banning application prototyping apps, rejecting an Android magazine app, and crap like this.

I somehow feel that if AppGratis was paying the 30% cut to Apple, it wouldn't have been banned from the store.

Re: AppGratis Is Nothing More Than A Black Hat Marketing Company

#23

Post by 2pasc »

nugget wrote: post #3

Well said. An ecosystem where paid promotion is the only path to reach the top of the charts incentivizes (even requires) the developers to become as aggressive as possible in terms of monetization, which often sucks for users and user experience.

But what about SEO and SEM? Don't you think that to grow ecommerce players, SaaS vendors, etc... or directories need to be aggressive there? It's true for every platform where there is mostly one path to entry. Now with the open web at least, there are multiple paths...with social media, etc...

Re: AppGratis Is Nothing More Than A Black Hat Marketing Company

#25

Post by Irregardless »

This story isn't adding up so far.

> But sources close to [Apple] say it was more than a little troubled that AppGratis was pushing a business model that appeared to favor developers with the financial means to pay for exposure.

http://allthingsd.com/20130408/confirmed-apple-kicks-appgrat...

That's the closest thing I can find to a "confirmation" that AppGratis was accepting cash in exchange for a higher rank in their app. They didn't confirm or deny that in their "Here's the Full Story" blog post, nor does it say anything about their business model on their website.

In any case, that supposedly has nothing to do with the two official reasons for which they were most recently banned. First is 2.25:

> Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected.

But they had encountered that problem before and cleared it with Apple. So the only new one is 5.6:

> Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind.

Seems a little odd to remove an app with 12 million users over such a minor detail when it could be resolved in a few seconds -- just remove push notifications. Does Apple ever give official responses on these issues?

Re: AppGratis Is Nothing More Than A Black Hat Marketing Company

#26

Post by 2pasc »

austenallred wrote: post #18

I never used AppGratis, so I need some help understanding here. Were 100% of the app recommendations "sponsored"? Were those that were "sponsored" marked as such? The comparison is made to black-hat SEO, but having a list of apps as well as some sponsored apps is fine if they are marked as such. The article makes the comparison to black-hat links, but including "sponsored" links is what Google does with AdWords/PPC a…

Most apps were not sponsored. Not more than 2 per week out of the 15 they are promoting in the US.

Re: AppGratis Is Nothing More Than A Black Hat Marketing Company

#27

Post by jacquesm »

alxbrun wrote: post #9
jacquesm wrote: post #8

AppGratis simply served a need, both on the consumer side (App discovery) as well as on the corporate side (app promotion). What ratio paid apps to free apps they were running is guesswork but I'd imagine if they would fail at the mix they would fail in the marketplace. The bigger problem is that they were simply too good at what they were doing and were competing with Apple on Apple's turf. Apple would like to contr…

"AppGratis simply served a need, both on the consumer side (App discovery) [...]" How can you call "discovery" a process where users receive everyday a push for the app that paid the highest bid to AppGratis ?

> where users receive everyday a push for the app that paid the highest bid to AppGratis ?

From what I understand of it only a fraction of the placements was paid for, you have to pay your bills somehow. If AG would only push paid ads they would have never ever been so popular with their users.

Re: AppGratis Is Nothing More Than A Black Hat Marketing Company

#28

Post by gyardley »

It's odd that the author singles out AppGratis for so much ire. There are many, many channels for paid app promotion, and rankings in Apple's app store have been heavily influenced by advertising dollars since the fall of 2008 - long before AppGratis was founded.

The advertising-free 'meritocracy' the author wants has never existed - even before the influx of paid app promotion, Apple could arbitrarily send an app to the top of the paid or free charts simply by featuring it.

Re: AppGratis Is Nothing More Than A Black Hat Marketing Company

#30

Post by danvideo »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #20

>as a user I want to be able to find the best apps for my task. Quality apps. Apps that will help me achieve whatever it is I'm doing. And I want Apple to decide that Why? Anyway it's abundantly clear that Apple is failing at that task, especially with new changes to the way search results are displayed.

> And I want Apple to decide that — not another company that takes (large) kickbacks from app developers [...] I want Apple to be ultimately responsible for my app marketplace experience.

Yes, that line bugged me as well. Forgetting about AppGratis (because I don't know enough about their business) how do you as a consumer just know that the store owner must be better at curating/rating items for you than a third party who's job that is?

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