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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

#61

Post by unreal37 »

gyardley wrote: post #28

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…

Not only for apps, but for anything in the world. If you spend a lot of money on advertising, your "thing" will sell more copies. True for electronics, cell phones, movies, TV shows, shoes, clothes... you name it.

The author of the original blog post thinks good apps should be decided by Apple and not influenced by advertising. What world does he live in?

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

#62

Post by calbear81 »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #50
ketralnis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind. They do a very poor job of enforcing this. Around Christmas about every app I have sent me a "I'm still here!" push notification around that time advertising itself. And every zynga game I've purchased (a habit I've discontinued) does this both for itself and for other zynga games a few times a month.

I'm just wondering why you would allow a game to send notifications in the first place; you were given the choice on first run.

Some games benefit from push notifications as reminders to do something like "feed my dragon or else it will die" or "your free spins are available now". These are integral to the core mechanics of the gameplay vs. a marketing message like "buy some coins for $1.99, on sale now!" or something to that effect.

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

#63

Post by mikeash »

ultimoo wrote: post #19

I still find it strange at times to wrap my head around the fact that for decades we championed a distributed and an open world-scale system - The Internet. And now, we are going back to policies controlled by 'guidelines' and rules and terms and conditions of large corporations -- Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Blackberry. Either we as a developer community got lost somewhere; or this was a careful, well thought-out…

I'm not sure how much things have really become worse here, as opposed to just shuffling things around.

20 years ago, a lot of people would have owned a Nintendo system or similar, which had all the things you discussed and more. 10 years ago, most cell phones could run third-party apps, but the requirements were so strict that almost none of any interest were available. The PC was theoretically an open system, but Microsoft was doing their best to close it up with business measures that were about as effective as these technological measures are today.

I'm not trying to defend in any way what Apple and friends get up to here. But I think things are not as bad as you say, or perhaps were always as bad as you say. The fight for openness is ongoing.

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

#64

Post by untog »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #50
ketralnis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind. They do a very poor job of enforcing this. Around Christmas about every app I have sent me a "I'm still here!" push notification around that time advertising itself. And every zynga game I've purchased (a habit I've discontinued) does this both for itself and for other zynga games a few times a month.

I'm just wondering why you would allow a game to send notifications in the first place; you were given the choice on first run.

To use one Zynga game as an example, it's great to get notifications from Words With Friends when it's my turn to play. The "you haven't played with ! Start a game?" notifications, not so much.

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

#65

Post by potatolicious »

Whether or not AppGratis was "rightfully" banned from the App Store is besides the point, IMO.

The problem here is that Apple is creating a confusing, inconsistent, and highly luck-based environment. This is in many ways similar to why entrepreneurship is often highly lacking in poorly governed countries.

Whether or not the rules are justifiable is a secondary concern to whether or not the rules are evenly and consistently applied. Apple wants a walled garden, fine, but we cannot have a walled garden where the majority of apps breaking the rules get away with it, and it's a random draw as to who gets the enforcement hammer.

If there's one thing that's poisonous to a healthy market it's uncertainty.

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

#66

Post by rdouble »

potatolicious wrote: post #65

Whether or not AppGratis was "rightfully" banned from the App Store is besides the point, IMO. The problem here is that Apple is creating a confusing, inconsistent, and highly luck-based environment. This is in many ways similar to why entrepreneurship is often highly lacking in poorly governed countries. Whether or not the rules are justifiable is a secondary concern to whether or not the rules are evenly and consis…

The problem here is that Apple is creating a confusing, inconsistent, and highly luck-based environment.

Perhaps they are just mirroring the rest of reality.

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

#67

Post by clinth »

JVIDEL wrote: post #34
ultimoo wrote: post #19

I still find it strange at times to wrap my head around the fact that for decades we championed a distributed and an open world-scale system - The Internet. And now, we are going back to policies controlled by 'guidelines' and rules and terms and conditions of large corporations -- Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Blackberry. Either we as a developer community got lost somewhere; or this was a careful, well thought-out…

Its freedom in exchange for comfort: the casual user no longer has to worry about looking for software because there's a large corporation telling him what he can do and what he can't. For many freedom of choice is stressful, but receiving orders is not.

It's also cognitive load. Facing infinite options with no guide isn't great. You don't read the entire internet, and likewise you're not looking for all options when looking for an application. Apple hosts all iOS apps, they have to sell the prospect of an open platform, so AppGratis acted as a filter.

Much of the paid-blogosphere is acting as a similar filter to this end. BoingBoing, waxy, and other early-web popular aggregators are known for reliably pointing at new-and-cool, not for being cool. Now blogspam aggregators are a business with margins.

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

#68

Post by jruderman »

calbear81 wrote: post #62
WiseWeasel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just wondering why you would allow a game to send notifications in the first place; you were given the choice on first run.

Some games benefit from push notifications as reminders to do something like "feed my dragon or else it will die" or "your free spins are available now". These are integral to the core mechanics of the gameplay vs. a marketing message like "buy some coins for $1.99, on sale now!" or something to that effect.

Waiting by not playing a game is never a "core mechanic" of a game. It's either an excuse for the app to grab your attention (play now to get a bonus) or a way to drive IAP (pay so you don't have to wait).

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

#69

Post by jrochkind1 »

2pasc wrote: post #49
ebbv wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AppGratis is a media, and like all media, it runs on advertising. In most media the advertising and the content are separate things and clearly demarcated. That's the problem that's being highlighted here. AppGratis' content was its advertising. Ostensible media which is being paid for positive reviews/highlighting of subjects has always been viewed as unethical. I don't know how much of AppGratis' highlighted apps…

AppGratis sponsored content was marked as Sponsored on the screen advertising the app, or by being called "Discovery App of the Day" (vs. Deal).

Wait, "Deal" means paid placement and "Discovery" does not? Or is it the opposite? How exactly is it you think this is clear?

It is true that there is certainly plenty of 'old school' media that intentionally confuses the difference between paid-placement advertisements and editorial content too. And venues that do that are disrespected and considered deceitful too, even if there are plenty of them.

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

#70

Post by WiseWeasel »

untog wrote: post #64
WiseWeasel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just wondering why you would allow a game to send notifications in the first place; you were given the choice on first run.

To use one Zynga game as an example, it's great to get notifications from Words With Friends when it's my turn to play. The "you haven't played with ! Start a game?" notifications, not so much.

Definitely makes sense for multi-player games. I had Draw Something sending me notifications for a brief time now that I think about it, until I got bored with it.

I guess that shows the importance of the policy in question, to provide an disincentive for companies to abuse the privilege. I'm not sure if that applies in this case however, when marketing-driven notifications are actually desired by the users.

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