App reviews?

[Jeff Brandt]

Hello all,

I am having a problem getting customers to review our iphone and Android apps.  I understand that it takes time, a commodity that everyone is short of but I was wondering if anyone had any in site.

We have sent an email to our customer requesting reviews and in the same email we provided useful information to entice but, nada.  The reviews that we have received have been very good. 

It is a catch 22 you have to have volume to get review but without reviews you can not get volume.

thanks,

Jef

--
Jeff Brandt
CSI, Communication Software, Inc.
jbr...@comsi.com
cel 415.710.9923
Office 541.306.4891
Fax 541.610.1889
www.motionPHR.com  a Personal Health Record for the iPhone
www.myMedBox.info a Personal Heath Record for the Google Phone
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyleebrandt

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."  Sun-Tzu, 544—496 BC

[Elia Freedman]

You have 50 free licenses. Offer the free licenses in exchange for reviews...
Elia

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elia Freedman
Infinity Softworks
(503) 939-4379
el...@infinitysw.com
www.infinitysw.com / www.fastfigures.com
Blog: http://www.eliainsider.com
Twitter: eliajf

[Jeff Siler]

One thing that really bothers me is that reviews are often submitted after the application is deleted.  So the customers who are removing the app review it trending the rating lower.  

Jeff

QA Engineer

[Brian Batchelder]

One of my apps just showed me a popup asking me to go rate it. I suppose that's an idea. FWIW, I didn't go rate it as I haven't used the app much, yet. 

Brian

Sent from my iPhone - please excuse any strange auto-corrections!

[Jeremy Logan]

I have an Android app in the market and I took a similar approach. After the 20th time someone runs the app it pops up a one-time message asking for ratings and/or feedback. I don't have any data as to how much (if at all) it helped, but I figured it couldn't hurt :)

Jeremy

On Jun 15, 2009 1:22 PM, "Brian Batchelder" <br...@briansbrain.biz> wrote:

One of my apps just showed me a popup asking me to go rate it. I suppose that's an idea. FWIW, I didn't go rate it as I haven't used the app much, yet. 

Brian

Sent from my iPhone - please excuse any strange auto-corrections!

On Jun 15, 2009, at 10:42 AM, Jeff Siler <jeff....@gmail.com> wrote: > One thing that really bo...

[Scott Hooper]

Hi Jeremy,

What's your Android app?

I find that about 1 in 6 downloaders leave a rating and comment. What's more, I find that people truly interested in the app are overwhelmingly more likely to leave feedback. People who download it, don't like it and get a fast return nearly never comment or leave feedback.

Scott

--
Scott

[Jeremy Logan]

Scott,

I wrote the "Portland Transit" app.

Jeremy

[j...@nyquil.org]

I find that, generally, ratings in the Android Marketplace are pretty
arbitrary, and generally unhelpful. As a developer, this is extremely
frustrating.

I've got several apps in the Market, each with a 'free' and 'donate'
version.

The most popular is 'youtube Sleuth,' which intercepts youtube video
links and generates a popup with the title, thumbnail and description
of the video. This allows you to see what the video IS before it
fires up the youtube player, buffers forever, and eventually starts
playing. You can see if you even want to spend the time waiting for
it to load. Very useful for a lot of people.

Unfortunately for me, there used to be an app in the Market called
'youtube downloader,' (which, as you might expect, downloads the MP4
of a youtube video to your sd card) and Google pulled it from the
Market. Now, people search for 'youtube' trying to find it, see my
app, install it, and then give it one star with a comment that says "I
didn't want this, I wanted youtube downloader!"

Conversely, the 'donate' versions of my apps cost $1 (and are
functionally identical to the free version) and all have better rating
averages, because people actually went out of the way to get it. Way
fewer TOTAL ratings, but a higher average.

So the long and the short of this meandering email is to point out
that people who rate under their own initiative are more likely to
give accurate ratings and/or useful feedback of shortcomings than all
those who just rate for the heck of it, or those that are just doing
it because you're begging them to. If you're getting 1 in 6 leaving
ratings, you might be in better shape average-wise than if all 6 of
them were rating like crazy.

To see the uselessness of which I speak, check out some of the recent
comments on the app: http://www.cyrket.com/package/org.nyquil.youtubesleuthfree

Jer

On Jun 15, 5:15 am, Jeff Brandt <jlb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am having a problem getting customers to review our iphone and Android
> apps.  I understand that it takes time, a commodity that everyone is short
> of but I was wondering if anyone had any in site.
>
> We have sent an email to our customer requesting reviews and in the same
> email we provided useful information to entice but, nada.  The reviews that
> we have received have been very good.
>
> It is a catch 22 you have to have volume to get review but without reviews
> you can not get volume.
>
> thanks,
>
> Jef
>
> --
> Jeff Brandt
> CSI, Communication Software, Inc.

> jbra...@comsi.com
> cel 415.710.9923
> Office 541.306.4891
> Fax 541.610.1889www.motionPHR.com a Personal Health Record for the iPhonewww.myMedBox.infoa Personal Heath Record for the Google Phonehttp://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyleebrandt

[Jeff Brandt]

One thing that I noticed if you give away an app you will get the worst reviews because with nothing invested.  they don't care.
People that have put up the cash are less likely to slam a product because they have something invested. You are not going to tell people how stupid you were to buy a piece of junk.

Jeff

jbr...@comsi.com

cel 415.710.9923
Office 541.306.4891
Fax 541.610.1889

www.motionPHR.com  a Personal Health Record for the iPhone
www.myMedBox.info a Personal Heath Record for the Google Phone

[Jeremy Logan]

I tend to "Mark as Spam" stupid or offensive reviews in the Android Market. For instance, I just marked about a million of them as spam for Youtube Sleuth since they aren't even talking about the app. Considering how crappy the Market is right now I don't know if it does any good, but it can't hurt, right?

Jeremy

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 12:05 PM, j...@nyquil.org <j...@nyquil.org> wrote:

> Fax 541.610.1889www.motionPHR.com a Personal Health Record for the http://iPhonewww.myMedBox.infoa Personal Heath Record for the Google Phonehttp://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyleebrandt