Alright, before we go very far in this let me be VERY clear: Yes, I’m a bit bitter. Yes, I’m upset that I worked my butt off on an application that I really thought people were going to like but hasn’t sold worth a damn. Yes, I’m even more upset that I get one star ratings from people who bitch about the fact that gCalWall doesn’t set the wallpaper automatically… even though I make quite clear in the description that I can’t because of the SDK from APPLE. It’s not that I’m incapable of figuring it out, its that I’m flat out not allowed to fricking do it. So YES. I’m bitter. HOWEVER…
No matter how bitter I may be, what I’m about to disclose to all of you is something that should make all of you VERY bitter. Maybe bitter is a bad choice of word here. How about Ripped Off. Scammed. Taken For A Ride. Wall-Streeted.
Yea, that’s how you should feel. That’s how I feel. Read on … you’re gonna love this.
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To start with let me say thank you to my friends at Gear Diary, JAMM, and of course Patrick here at JAiB. All three sites have covered gCalWall and posted their honest opinions about the app. They haven’t been gentle or sugar coated what they think just because of where I fit in with the sites. So thank you to all three. Now, you may have noticed that you haven’t seen gCalWall anywhere else. You may have wondered why that is (although I doubt it). Well, I’ll tell you why the app hasn’t really been mentioned anywhere…
Here’s where the title comes back into play. Bullshit Review Sites. As I’m sure you’re aware, in order to get into the iPhone developer game there’s an entrance fee. It costs $99. But did you know that to get into the “iPhone developer have your app reviewed” game there’s an even higher price of admission? Yea, I didn’t either until I started contacting sites asking for them to review my app. Here’s a fairly common (albeit long) response:
Thanks for sending over the information about your new app. Please note that due to the number of inquiries and review requests we receive daily, it may take a while to get to your app.
We have several other additional options for you to make sure your app gets seen by REDACTED readers.
We can provide an expedited review for a $50 fee. This will get your app reviewed by our staff within 6 business days. However, just because your app is reviewed doesn’t guarantee that the app will be published. While paying the expedite fee cannot guarantee you a positive review, we will guarantee that if our reviewers don’t approve your app we will refund your fee and not proceed with the article. After all — our readers are not interested in negative reviews — they are looking for us to highlight the best and most interesting apps out there. Fore more information on the expedited review process please refer to our FAQ section.
We also have several levels of advertising opportunities. Every advertiser also receives one Expedited Review for free.
Our Premium placement ads (the top 3 slots) range in price from $400-600 per month.
We still have basic ads that can start anytime. We have two sizes: $250 per month for 180×150 pixels and $150 per month for 180×75 pixels. Each ad shows up on every page in a rotating column according to size.
REDACTED reaches thousands of people every day, including many of the key VCs and journalists who follow the iPhone app scene. In addition, REDACTED . So, if your app is reviewed by us, you not only get the immediate benefit of thousands of highly qualified iPhone enthusiasts, journalists and VCs learning about your app, you also get the permanent SEO benefit of having a positive REDACTED review show up in the Google search results when people look up your app or company. Finally, you get a permalink to the review that you can use to raise awareness or investment capital for your company. I think you will agree
that all this could easily be worth much more than the application fee.If you are interested in following through with this idea, please let me know via email – I’ll send you Paypal instructions, and we’ll get your app put on the expedited list right away.
Now lest you think I made all that up…
Blah, Blah Blah …
If you’re looking for instant exposure on the website, please consider
advertising your application on REDACTED. With thousands of
visitors every day REDACTED you can’t find a website that targets your
specific audience more.
Let me point out a couple things here BESIDES the obvious Pay-to-Play mentality of these sites.
After all — our readers are not interested in negative reviews — they are looking for us to highlight the best and most interesting apps out there.
Now, I don’t know about you … but if I read an app review I want HONESTY. I want to know if something is complete crap so I don’t bother wasting my money on it. There’s no benefit here to anyone. There’s no benefit to the developer who likely wants to make his/her app better, and there’s definitely no benefit to you the buyer since you’ll just go right on thinking about buying what is likely a shite application.
So there you go. Before you start thinking about getting into the iPhone development game, you might want to think about what the real costs are going to be. Not just the cost of entry into the Apple Developer Program, but the cost of even getting reviews. And if you’re thinking about buying an iPhone app, keep these policies in mind. Sure that may be a glowing review you just read… but I wonder how much it cost them to get it.
Let me clearly state one more thing: We don’t ask for money. Never have. Never will. Not JAMM. Not JAiB… and if I know what I think I do about Judie, not at Gear Diary either.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Brandon, sorry to hear about your adventures… In order to put full light on this practice, would you please give us a list of websites that asked for money? Did you encounter this problem with many websites or just one? Which one?
I believe this is an isolated case as I really doubt the “big names” of the iPhone blogging world would ask for money.
I decline almost every request for app review on my blog (especially those starting by “I just created the best app ever for…”). When I do feel like an app has potential, I usually ask for a promo code to the dev. That’s as far as it goes for me. I never thought about asking money to the devs for featuring their apps on my blog, and would never do that as it would be completely biased, thus useless.
Sorry … I left the names out because I didn’t feel right posting them. I will say that I only submitted to sites I read myself, I respected, and really thought I had a shot at getting covered on. I didn’t send to sites like TUAW and Macworld just because I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d get picked up.
I think I sent codes to 5 sites (since we only get a limited number of codes) and got 3 responses (all form responses). 148apps.com was the only one who didn’t hit me up for money. The 5 sites were pretty much a trial run. Given the responses… its the last run I’ll ever try.
yeah, I wanna know what sites too. I don’t want to contribute to any site’s page views that pulls this crap.
Wow, that speaks volumes about the journalistic integrity of some sites. Best of luck with the app.
A few of the sites, mine included, that got sick of being asked if we had “expedited review fees” have banded together to let everyone know that we have much higher standards than that. Take a look at http://gotoats.org for more info on who some of the good guys are and what we believe in.
Cheers,
Jeff
Jeff – thanks for the link. I just sent in a request to sign up, as we’ve believed in and adhered to those principles since the word go …
Simply ridiculous. Thanks for the write-up.
Sorry to hear that Brandon. I’m also a developer, and I know how bad it can be. Don’t give up on future developments!
Brandon,
FYI: gcalWall Lite was mentioned in LifeHacker today.
Thanks – I saw that earlier (Patrick emailed me). You have no idea how much that cost me!! Just kidding… I was totally floored when I saw that – even called my wife to tell her. Unfortunately that was sort of a downer because she had absolutely no idea who the heck I was talking about!
This is why a site like http://gotoats.org exists. Great post, guys.
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