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by teej
4673 days ago
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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. |
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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)