[alanctgardner2]

I think this is a unique observation that doesn't really scale to other platforms: Facebook is a giant sea of rubbish apps, and the goal is to snatch attention from someone scrolling through a whole pile of their friends' updates. In this case it makes sense to post something as appealing and specific as possible to the timeline, to better appeal to a random passerby. App discovery on mobile is not drive-by: none of these apps will ever hit a leaderboard (splitting them up fragments the userbase), and they'll look bad in search results because of few downloads, few reviews, and a seemingly over-specific purpose.

That's not to mention the fact that Apple won't let you publish 200,000 apps from one account. This is like an article recommending that everyone become a bounty hunter because it was a good way to make money in the Old West: it takes advantage of a single market at a specific point in time. I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook starts cracking down on this sort of spam as well soon.

[teej]

This guy's Facebook tactics haven't been valid for over 4 years and they certainly won't work to the same degree on the App Store.

This particular tactic worked on Facebook because ratings of spaminness and blocking happened on a per-app basis. You could take a spammy app, reskin it 1,000 ways, and release them in to the wild seperately. If a user blocked "Diwali gifts" app they still get messages from "Christmas gifts" app. It's essentially a hack to workaround the way Facebook's app ecosystem was designed at the time.

He has two really important points, whether he knows it or not -

* There is a powerful long-tail search of apps in the App Store

* Users will be more likely to click and download an app that is more targeted at their search intent

Both of these are really hard to leverage with a single app right now in the App Store. Apple WILL shut you down if you create 10,000 shallow copies of your app, so that isn't an option.

[ankurnagpal89]

I have not developed for the Facebook platform since the latter half of 2011 so there might be some truth in it - but this was certainly effective up until then.

The spam-rating was only one aspect of it - horizontal distribution attracted users that otherwise simply would not have been interested in the application otherwise.

Regarding iOS shutting you down, I think two things are important. The first is making a good case for the application not being shallow - looking at the way Udemy has full course (some of which have 10+ hours of material) on drastically different topics as separate applications might be a good template. They have over 100 iOS Apps and have not faced any action.

The other interesting strategy to consider (one that I haven't tested) is talking power users (such as meetup group organizers) through the process of generating the correct signing keys and then letting them download a complete application binary that they independently submit to the App Store under their own account. This casts a wider net and potentially might alleviate the getting shut down issue.

With that said, I haven't tested it on iOS myself so cannot speak authoritatively.

I have succeeded with horizontal distribution on Google Play by using screen automation technology to submit applications - but finally, had to take it down since the applications were based on quotes from TV shows which Google claimed did not come under the Fair Use Act of the Copyright law (whole other issue)

[thetrumanshow]

Nice. I call this technique the "attack of the clones". I was slammed with this method by competitors in FB apps in 2007.

Cleverly done my nemesis. :) As you note, this is effective in many other places too.