How App Developers Manipulate Your Mood To Boost Ranking? (ft.com) 41
Higher ratings are the 'lifeblood' of the smartphone app world but what if they are inflated? From a report: Rating an iPhone app takes just a second, maybe two. "Enjoying Skype?" a prompt will ask, and you click on a 1-5 star rating. Millions of people respond to these requests, giving little thought to their fleeting whim. Behind the scenes, though, an entire industry has spent countless hours and lines of code to craft this moment. The prompt, seemingly random, can be orchestrated to hit your glowing screen only at times when you are most likely to leave a five star review. Gaming apps will solicit a rating just after you reach a high score. Banking apps will ask when they know it's payday. Gambling apps will prompt users after they are dealt the perfect Blackjack hand. A sporting app will give the nudge only when a user's team is winning.
Apple has for a decade clamped down on "ratings farms" and "download bots" that companies use to fraudulently garner five-star scores and manipulate App Store rankings. And it has had some success. But these are blunt instruments trying to cheat the system in clear violation of Apple's rules. The more sophisticated techniques stay within the rules but draw on behavioural psychology to understand your mood, emotions and behaviour -- they are not hacking the system; they are hacking your brain. "The algorithms that are used are very hush-hush," says Saoud Khalifah, chief executive of Fakespot, a service that analyses the authenticity of reviews on the web. "They can target you when you are euphoric, when you have a lot of dopamine. They can use machine learning to determine [when] a user will be more inclined to leave positive reviews."
Apple has for a decade clamped down on "ratings farms" and "download bots" that companies use to fraudulently garner five-star scores and manipulate App Store rankings. And it has had some success. But these are blunt instruments trying to cheat the system in clear violation of Apple's rules. The more sophisticated techniques stay within the rules but draw on behavioural psychology to understand your mood, emotions and behaviour -- they are not hacking the system; they are hacking your brain. "The algorithms that are used are very hush-hush," says Saoud Khalifah, chief executive of Fakespot, a service that analyses the authenticity of reviews on the web. "They can target you when you are euphoric, when you have a lot of dopamine. They can use machine learning to determine [when] a user will be more inclined to leave positive reviews."
This literally never works on me (Score:5, Insightful)
I am always annoyed with the interruption.
If the program is too insistent that I rate it (either by sending me to the store without asking, refusing to let me opt out, or the second time it hassles me to rate it while I'm busy using the app) then I go ahead and give it a single star, and explain in my review that I'm giving it one star because it harassed me.
Be consistent, stand up against this practice, and it will be reduced.
Re:This literally never works on me (Score:4, Informative)
Came here to say exactly this.
IMHO, there should be a system-wide setting that enables or disables apps' ability to request ratings.
I'll add that years ago, there were such a thing as "human interface guidelines" that apps were expected to follow.
One of those guidelines was "do not steal focus from the user." In other words, no popups asking/requiring that the user change contexts.
It's unfortunate that so many developers these days are thinking about themselves (rate me!) instead of their users' experience.
Re: This literally never works on me (Score:4, Informative)
"IMHO, there should be a system-wide setting that enables or disables apps' ability to request ratings."
There is. Search in Settings for In-App Ratings & Reviews. And there's an App Review guideline requiring apps to use it and not their own custom prompts.
That's why any rating nag I see always leads to a 1-star rating.
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Even shadier is the apps that follow up with a dialog box prompting you to indicate the number of stars; if you select 5 you get taken to the app store, but pick 1 or 2 and you instead get sent to a feedback page on the developer's website.
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I'll add that years ago, there were such a thing as "human interface guidelines" that apps were expected to follow.
There still is, but sadly a lot of apps are ignoring them, even apps from Apple.
And the HIG even have a section about ratings and reviews [apple.com] which state:
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I do this consistently too. If you annoy me with a popup, you deserve a low score, no ifs no buts.
Re: This literally never works on me (Score:3)
I am the same. So on the apps I develop (astro/weather) there are never any popups. This led to the problem that I would get very few reviews, so there was an issue competing with annoying apps that actually had reviews through pushing for them (reviews are shown by country, so for rather niche apps it is not as easy to get even 1 review for every country). In the end I added a message in the update text, rate/review if you want to support the app. That did get some reviews going to help with app recognitio
Re: This literally never works on me (Score:1)
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Me too. Any app that harasses me to leave a rating gets the lowest possible rating, uninstalled and (if commercial) refunded.
Re: This literally never works on me (Score:1)
I have a similar problem. IMHO the thing should be allowed to come up once, maybe 30 days after installations or after 5 uses whichever comes first and handled solely by Apple, not by some tie-in ad network.
Re: This literally never works on me (Score:2)
I do the same. I wish there were more of us.
Default (Score:2)
If I get a rate me pop up nag screen I always choose the worst rating. This compensates for all the clever programming.
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exactly. plus agree to polls and just answer randomly.
storm in a teacup. if people keep choosing apps based on the number of stars or the position in searches then i guess they get what they deserve.
Interesting article (Score:2)
Consider the poster (Score:2)
Business as usual.
Self-reporting grammar snob (Score:3)
This questionless question format reads badly, and is just annoying.
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The thing that bothers me more is the implication that there is some dark, devious trickery at work here. I mean, yeah. App makers ask you to rate the app at a time they think you might be feeling most generous toward it. So what? When I was a kid, it was obvious that there were certain times that were better than others to ask my dad for ten bucks. It's not emotional manipulation, it's just emotional intelligence.
Also. The world does not turn on app store ratings. What if a hundred thousand people are tric
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In other words, it's not like it's a "real" survey (which are not found on the web).
Seems like anyone who thinks any of those ratings means anything is a non-statistician. OTOH, if you get more money with higher ratings, then there is certainly an incentive
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It's not even a statement! It's a fragment!
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Also, the causation is backward. It's about apps predicting or detecting a good mood, not causing it for rating purposes
That explains it (Score:3)
I keep on coming across highly rated apps with 4.5+ stars where every review complains that the app doesn't work.
Although I also keep on coming across reviews that read something like: "This app is a complete scam! Takes your money and doesn't work! 5/5 Stars"
The star ratings are entirely useless.
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Maybe they rated it 5/5 because it was such a successful scam. It parted them with their money before they'd given it a second thought, like a real slick pickpocket, or a marching band salesman.
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If you give it a star rating without leaving a comment, it doesn't show up in the comments.
Not it does not explain it (Score:2)
I keep on coming across highly rated apps with 4.5+ stars where every review complains that the app doesn't work.
I don't know why that is, but it is not because of these prompts. They cannot control what rating an app is given, just take you to the screen where you select a rating and write a review.
So if a user has given it a four star review then says it doesn't work, that is all on them.
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One, is all the glowing reviews that read vague, nonspecific things like, "Thank you for This App (sic) it is wonderful and I use it every day!"
Second is when the ratings get so low (here's looking at you, Weather Channel!) the developers simply "retire" the app by rebranding it as a classic version, then re-release the same app with minor changes as a new offering so that all the bad reviews get left behi
Small wonder (Score:2)
"Millions of people respond to these requests, giving little thought to their fleeting whim."
Half of us have an IQ of under 100.
My mood is always 'annoyed' when these questions pop up.
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Read Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow." The effect of cognitive ease affects everyone except those who are taking steps to avoid it, and that is not based upon IQ.
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Cognitive ease affects everyone, full stop. Those who take steps mitigate it to a degree, but reminding yourself it's not 100% is part of remaining ever vigilant.
Seemed pretty obvious (Score:2)
Seemed pretty obvious to me. App ratings are a marketing tool. They want to ask people to do so after having an experience they know most users are happy about.
What's next, claiming that bartenders are manipulating you into leaving a better tip by smiling and saying thanks for coming out when they drop the check?
You REALLY do NOT want me to rate your product! (Score:2)
Many products strive for greatness, only to turn out to be ordinary. This product is BETTER at being ordinary than others. In fact, its EXTRA ordinary!
Why is that a question? (Score:2)
"How app developers manipulate your mood to boost ranking?"
Do you mean, "how do" and "rankings"? Stellar editing, as usual.
Where to report these rating abuses? (Score:2)
I couldn't find it when I saw tons of fake reviews and ratings. :(
The real value of AI (Score:1)
Is that it will solve human behavior. It's not so difficult to model human behavior, and to affect it in meaningful ways. You don't need 100% accuracy, just affecting the behavior of 10 % of a population, userbase or customer group is enough to generate millions in profit, or votes, or views.
Another tool in the toolbox of the most powerful.
Re: The real value of AI (Score:1)
Then it's.good that there.is no such thing as "AI", in the forseeable future, and it's a scam term, even more so than "cloud" or "DRM".
Apart from the scammers, it's only said by people of the same level of cluelessness as those who started/kept saying "cyber" after 2010 (+/-5y).
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It's based on fallacies, and can never work. Like (Score:1)
A user does not equal a person. One of the one can be millions of the other. We need to stop treating connections and user IDs as individual people, and accept automation, shared IDs and shared resources. Because we don't have a choice. Those things are natural and inavoidable. And, with the correct approach, not something evil or harmful either.
And a rating, vote or the like is only trustworthy as much as your judgment on the one who gave it.
Like "Who watches the watchmen?": In the end, nobody can do the j