In China everything is fake: Viral image shows ridiculous way app developers influence their sales s - Polidicks

[url]http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/02/13/possibly-real-viral-image-shows-one-potential-but-ridiculous-way-app-developers-game-sales-stats/[/url] [IMG]https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/appmanip.jpg?w=580&h=772[/IMG] [QUOTE]If you’re one of the many, many people who downloaded smartphone smash Flappy Bird only to find yourself decidedly underwhelmed and wondering why it was getting quite so much praise and press, you’re not alone. And while the aforementioned game may well have made it to the top of the charts due entirely to word of mouth and its strangely addictive, if simplistic, gameplay, you wouldn’t be considered completely crazy for wondering whether some games got to the top Google Play and the App Store’s popular downloads lists by some other means. Case in point, this viral image doing the rounds online today, which purportedly shows a Chinese employee of a firm which makes its living boosting apps’ stats. As you can see, the “employee” sits in front of a rack of maybe 100 or so smartphones, and, from the looks of it, there’s someone else doing the exact same thing across from her. A select number of tech sites and the more tabloid-y members of the online news media claim the image is depicting the employee downloading, deleting, then downloading again, the same app ad infinitum to boost the app’s rank in whichever online marketplace, thus encouraging legitimate downloads. It’s unclear if the photo is real or not. If such a shady marketing company exists, after all, it would be insane for them to let employees take their personal phones and cameras into the diabolical stat grinding chamber. But there are a few things to keep in mind that increase the image’s credibility: 1) Breaking the top 10 of your genre or, even better, all app sales, for even a day or two, earns you a coveted place on the top page of an app marketplace and is possibly the best advertising an app can possibly get. Remember that at least one of the three mobile games that put an ad out during the Super Bowl this year still couldn’t break into the top 10, even after spending millions on the TV spot. Put it that way, and paying some shady marketing company a hundred thousand or so to get your app on the top page – for a captive audience that is specifically there to download apps, mind you – makes a lot more sense. Here’s a photo alleging what one of these shady Chinese rank-boosting companies charges: 2) While the image depicts what seems like an incredibly low-tech solution (not to mention the overhead of buying all those phones), manipulating download and/or sales stats is commonly practiced enough in the industry that both Apple and Google keep a pretty close eye out for it. On the other hand, Apple and Google are both mum on exactly how app rankings are calculated, but whether or not the image is a fake probably comes down to whether the app ranking algorithms measure total downloads – in which case it’s probably real – or whether they measure unique downloads (only one download counts per device), which would leave these employees a few hundred thousand phones short of even making a dent on an app’s ranking.[/QUOTE]

Assuming that's real, I think we've found a new contender for most mind-numbingly boring job ever.

but getting all those iPhones surely costs more than whatever good reviews will get you

Fun fact, all those phones on display there probably cost more than 10 times her pay for installing shit on them

[QUOTE=Cabbage;47127926]but getting all those iPhones surely costs more than whatever good reviews will get you[/QUOTE] not if your company provides it for different app developers

Holy fuck. I knew app rankings and such tend to be slightly dodgy and rigged, but [I]this[/I] is not what I pictured. :v:

why would they need phones? cant they effectively do the same thing with a pc and an android emulator? surely there'd be ways to automate this instead of someone sitting manually doing every download. idk seems like that amount of phones is inefficient, it would work just as well with less if the person couldnt get through the entire rack of phones before the first phone finished installing, which seems unlikely.

I feel like it would be infinitely more efficient to write a script to do this and load it on jailbroken iPhones/ android phones I assume that's possible, anyway, I've never jailbroken an iPhone before or owned an android. aaaaand I'm late by a minute

[QUOTE=Cushie;47128097]why would they need phones? cant they effectively do the same thing with a pc and an android emulator?[/QUOTE] this arguably the safest way to get away with it.

At first I thought this was some kinda software installing station in a clone factory, but the way they all have differently colored bumpers but aren't ordered doesn't make much sense in that scenario. Besides they're probably all old models, or stuff that gets sent back for repairs/never leaves the factory because of defects, I bet they didn't pay MSRP for all of those.

[QUOTE=Cabbage;47127926]but getting all those iPhones surely costs more than whatever good reviews will get you[/QUOTE] Depends on how many customers you get, unless your iphones bunk out really quick it's a lot cheaper investment than a lot of companies have to make. My company has cameras that are each more expensive than 17 brand new iphone 6 plus phones, or 32 iphone 5cs. Considering they probably don't need brand new latest model phones, as long as they're continually getting business they probably make the investment back pretty quick.

That seems like something that could be very easily automated Or at the very least done on 100 phones at the same time

[QUOTE=Cushie;47128097]why would they need phones? cant they effectively do the same thing with a pc and an android emulator? surely there'd be ways to automate this instead of someone sitting manually doing every download. idk seems like that amount of phones is inefficient, it would work just as well with less if the person couldnt get through the entire rack of phones before the first phone finished installing, which seems unlikely.[/QUOTE] Because Chinese and not exactly understanding how this stuff works I'm betting this is from some shady marketing company promising to boost app ranks instead of an actual software developer

[QUOTE=Murkrow;47128202]That seems like something that could be very easily automated Or at the very least done on 100 phones at the same time[/QUOTE] "Who needs expensive automation when I can pay my employees 15 cents an hour!"

This image has no source. I've seen it pop up on humor sites for quite some time now. It could very easily be staged.

[QUOTE=pentium;47128281]"Who needs expensive automation when I can pay my employees 15 cents an hour!"[/QUOTE] Why not just make an easy as shit script for free then? Also I love how the first phone on the bottom row has a massive crack on it.

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;47128354]Why not just make an easy as shit script for free then? Also I love how the first phone on the bottom row has a massive crack on it.[/QUOTE] That's a reflection, you can see it continue on the second phone.

It's a human, so a captcha would only slow things down. not stop it.

[QUOTE=Roll_Program;47128648]It's a human, so a captcha would only slow things down. not stop it.[/QUOTE] Imagine thinking that there aren't programs that can beat captchas.

Honestly I'd rather do this then work in a factory if I lived over there.

[QUOTE=draugur;47128742]Imagine thinking that there aren't programs that can beat captchas.[/QUOTE] Guess me and all the websites that use captchas are naieve.

[QUOTE=Cushie;47128097]why would they need phones? cant they effectively do the same thing with a pc and an android emulator? surely there'd be ways to automate this instead of someone sitting manually doing every download. idk seems like that amount of phones is inefficient, it would work just as well with less if the person couldnt get through the entire rack of phones before the first phone finished installing, which seems unlikely.[/QUOTE] They look like iPhones to me. But yeah, it's easy to emulate the more popular Android phones.

[QUOTE=draugur;47128742]Imagine thinking that there aren't programs that can beat captchas.[/QUOTE]Imagined. What's next Captain? Quite a lot of captchas can't be beat by a program or require so many guesses the system will block you. They require a human to complete.

[QUOTE=itisjuly;47129496]Imagined. What's next Captain? Quite a lot of captchas can't be beat by a program or require so many guesses the system will block you. They require a human to complete.[/QUOTE] mechanical turk bam

Wow it's like a virtual sweatshop.

[QUOTE=Cushie;47128097]why would they need phones? cant they effectively do the same thing with a pc and an android emulator? surely there'd be ways to automate this instead of someone sitting manually doing every download. idk seems like that amount of phones is inefficient, it would work just as well with less if the person couldnt get through the entire rack of phones before the first phone finished installing, which seems unlikely.[/QUOTE] Spoofing downloads in an automated way is easy way to boost but also easy to get yourself banned and easy to detect. You also need to constantly develop your bot/software to go against countermeasures that google/apple might theoretically put in place to stop such practices. Meanwhile this is arguably just as fast with enough people and are 100% legitimate downloads according to the system. Its hard to stop, requires no skill/money other than the phones and the pennies you pay for labor, and works.

[QUOTE=KorJax;47129705] Meanwhile this is arguably just as fast with enough people and are 100% legitimate downloads according to the system. Its hard to stop, requires no skill, and works.[/QUOTE] Don't you need a fuckton of devices to reach any meaningful download number? Like tens of thousands because less than that doesn't really mean much.

[QUOTE=itisjuly;47129716]Don't you need a fuckton of devices to reach any meaningful download number? Like tens of thousands because less than that doesn't really mean much.[/QUOTE] You forget just how cheap you can get shit in china, especially android. Your average pizza place in the US spends more money on its equipment than this operation would spending money on phones. And likely makes way more profit too. Dropping $10-30K on equipment is a drop in the bucket for startup costs in any US business, doing the same thing in China gets you even more.

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;47128354]Why not just make an easy as shit script for free then?[/QUOTE] Because devs want to go with the safest option possible and they are willing to pay extra for it.

[QUOTE=KorJax;47129723]You forget just how cheap you can get shit in china, especially android. Your average pizza place in the US spends more money on its equipment than this operation would spending money on phones. And likely makes way more profit too. Dropping $10-30K on equipment is a drop in the bucket for startup costs in any US business, doing the same thing in China gets you even more.[/QUOTE]Android, since it's so open, you could fake on pc. If it can count a $50 device as a valid download, I'm sure you can trick it into thinking a modified vm is legit. What about apple devices though?