Multiple fake reviews for the Funwall App on Facebook have been deleted after it was discovered that the reviews came from employees of Slide, the apps owner.
Fake reviews seem to be part of the norm these days, however most companies are smart enough to cover their tracks; Slide employees on the other hand post from accounts that are part of the Slide Inc Facebook network.
A couple of samples (via this thread on Facebook)
FIVE STAR RATING
I can’t live without it!
by Sohyen Claire Kim at 2:12pm on January 30th, 2008
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=1000000 … ref=fbprvwYou can enjoy this super amazing FunWall apps!!!!
Very Strongly Recommended!!!! big_smileFIVE STAR RATING
Fantastic Application!!
by Mayumi Yoshida at 1:44pm on February 1st, 2008
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=1000000 … ref=fbprvwI totally love FunWall!! I can put Youtube videos, greeting cards, neat pix and fun postings…it’s super convenient and addictive!!
And I love how I can forward my friends’ fun stuff that they sent me!!Hooray for FunWall!! Seriously, a Wall cannot get any better than this.
FIVE STAR RATING
w00t!
by Adora SlideEleven at 6:41pm on February 16th, 2008
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=1000000 … ref=fbprvwlove it.
FIVE STAR RATING
luv it!
by Adora SlideEight at 1:15am on February 17th, 2008
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=1000000 … ref=fbprvw
The Adora Slidexxx names are a particularly classy touch: not only is Slide spamming Facebook with fake reviews, they’re also using fake accounts with fake names and more staggeringly adding the fake accounts to the company only Facebook group (The name Adora comes from Slides Sr. Product Manager Adora Cheung). A full list of the fake accounts on Slide Inc here; there are pages upon pages of fake accounts, which also breach Facebook’s TOS.
MikeP on the same thread sums it up beautifully: “Slide writing fake reviews on their own reviews board is hilarious! is that really the behavior of a company worth $500M?”
Here’s a new theme song for the bright sparks at Slide who thought this was wise:
Companies do this all the time. On download.com, on digg.com, ect… It’s considered normal by now I think.
nice catch, now, ask how many reall users they have!
This is absolutely disgusting behavior for a joke of company that didn’t deserve its valuation and won’t survive a bad recession. You cannot FAKE your way into being a great company. The web should revolt against companies that pull this kind of crap. Add Slide to the deadpool!
sad
Hey,
This is so low. C’mon, it is natural to like your product. Let others to judge if it is crap or not. But in this case the guys at Slide just lableled themselfs as … lamers.
Go Slide…. not
Slide is the best thing since sliced bread
by Max Levchin at 5:43 on April 3rd, 2008
http://www.Slide.com
Imagine my surprise when I came across this review!!! I must admit, I was a little suspicious….
jenkins..totally agree i wrote up a whole anti slide comment but deleted it at the last minute.. slide is seriously somewhat of a joke..if thats where we are heading i can totally see the internet bubble bursting sometime soon..
This is bullshit. Its sad that fake reviews are becoming the norm. Not sure what kind of ‘normal’ world we live in these days. Sigh.
I dont think this is the first time this has happened it seems to be happening all over the place… sad very sad
And the below slide user, has posted a nice profile pic too
http://www.face...0010&init=r
This seems to be the norm nowadays. #6 hehehe, sliced bread comment about their product is so hilarious. I mean why go to that extent and make it so obvious. Weird..
lol @ Caramelhoneys !
Hey companies even do this on techcrunch, blame their marketing deps. There should severe penalties / legislation to at least regulate this.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen fake reviews on a good product. It’s always the companies, authors, etc., who know what they’ve created is crap that feel the need to fake the reviews.
Well, if you haven’t seen it then they probably were too good to be found out. The market is obviously crowded and you will never know good from bad when it comes to users comments, in this case they were dum enough to be related to their company. No polemic, just realistic.
Who don’t honestly, let’s not be hypocrite here
What!! im REAL!!!!
I have to admit I will almost always discount any review that isn’t either a) very detailed – e.g. some Amazon book reviews or b) if it is very positive, doesn’t also list some downsides.
Well done to those who expose this kind of activity!
keep it real!! slide is part of the silicon valley “in crowd” they will always land on their feet, thats why they do stunts like that without any fear… one day new startups will begin to see that silicon valley is “fixed” JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER VENTURE IN THIS COUNTRY..
FIVE STAR RATING
Fantastic Application!!
by meh at 2:44pm on April 3rd, 2008
I love funwall! lets people post clips from pornos and big booty women and then spam my friends with them.
Mike have you ever thought about making a video blog for techcrunch? I find them much more exciting, especially when viewed through FunWall ™ the world’s greatest video sharing tool. And people can leave photo comments using Guestbook ™, giving your site more “punch”.
If you do I promise to put you in my “hotties” section of ScreenSaver, which is really a cool app.
@13: Well there is a solution to this problem and it’s not new legislation – this isn’t an isolated problem: there is a whole ocean of info and opinions floating on the web, and some are bound to be biased – we users just need to learn to sift out bad and useless opinion – i.e. ignore all the rubbish general unsupported statements like “this product is great!” or “this product is rubbish!” – look at the REASONS WHY they hold such an opinion. Then you can decide for yourself whether you agree or disagree with their reasoning and make your own mind up.
Nowadays I automatically ignore opinions – I only listen to reason.
Slide + Digg = $0
The first review above said “I can’t live without it!”
I don’t see any problem here. The employee who wrote it probably can’t live without it, because she wouldn’t have a job without funwall, and might be on the streets starving to death.
“Slide, founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, makes widgets that help people express themselves.”
…and, in light of these recent outings, my own interpertation of the above quote…
“Slide, founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, makes it’s employees falsely express themselves about their widgets.”
WTF were these people thinking??
@22, Tim
Spot on, you can’t legislate against this kind of monkey business, it’s an inevitable consequence of openness meeting greed. The signal:noise ratio is just too low to be able to take anything useful away.
Qualifying the reasons you feel a certain product is good or bad is a good way of imparting at least a bit useful information. Another avenue is some sort of reputation system. A combination of both would be best I think.
Aren’t the best reviews a qualitative assessment from someone you can trust? I’m not sure the perfect system is out there but we can at least strive for it.
Incidentally, the same goes for blog/forum comments in places like this. The background chatter is often too overwhelming to pick out the really useful comments.
Paul Graham wrote an interesting essay on How to Disagree http://paulgrah...m/disagree.html
Curious thing is, I haven´t even started…
App’s rating suddenly cut in half?
http://forum.de...ic.php?id=12851
From the looks of it, no one has realized what is going on…
Is this porn?
http://forum.de...ic.php?id=11408
Slide makes some of the spammiest apps anyway. I have to block them all as they drive me nuts. Not surprised they’re spamming the review boards too. Tiresome.
@23
Slide + Digg + RockYou = $0.00
Slide + Digg + RockYou + Facebook = $100.00
Slide + Digg + RockYou + Facebook + Twitter = $0.00
classy. just the behavior you would come to expect from a $200 million dollar company.
sadly companies do it all the time.
It makes me laugh when people also take registered user numbers , downloaded numbers, monthly visits as a sign of a companies value.
All these things can be made up and cooked to value the company higher. whether its be buying visitors from bots , or just making the figures up or whatever.
How did you tracked it down?
Love the music choice here! Perhaps blog posts need theme music like scenes in movies
This one perfectly sums up this story.
Now its time to investigate if they have done the reverse to rival applications. Rating them down and leaving negative comments. If this exists, FaceBook should punish them.
Brilliant, insightful article. I forwarded to all my friends. Thank you.
-Dungan Rigley
What amazes me is that they felt the need to spam an application that is already ridiculously and inexplicably popular. You might write a fake review or two on Amazon if you’re a desperate, struggling author or everyone else is slagging your book off, but not if you’re J. K. Rowling and have just released the last Harry Potter novel.
Just like a spamming company to write great reviews that helps them spam your friends through your own profile.
Let’s all poke Adora
http://www.face...p?id=1069530799
I appreciate the Ben Folds love…
companies.do.this.all.the.time
is it right? no. is it newsworthy? not really. who cares. leave max alone… RIGHT NOW!!!
@30
so truuuuuuuuuuuuu!
people are leaving Slide, tough environment, especially in PM, some dev
Yes, slide made a mistake. But can you blame them for giving that type of job to their interns? My opinion is they need to stop copying others work and actually do/create some stuff that is new and unique. Haven’t seen that yet out of slide.
hahahah OWNED
I fucking hate slide
@38
everyone hates slide, nobody is going to leave max alone.
their comments sound like detergent commercial
Their CEO isn’t qualified to run the company after this. This is a big deal, folks. There is something called integrity, and it is ok to do things right. This guy obviously knows about this, no way he doesn’t, and should take the fall. If I was a board member I would be very concerned about what other unethical things this guy is doing. Yikes, this is BAD!
Seth – is that an unforgivable reference?
Jenkins: Let’s just call it a few bad apples and just go on our way. It’s not like Abu Ghraib where the whole chain of command is complicit. Maybe.
Mike: Wait, are you saying those 40,000 test accounts I created with a script aren’t real users?
I think it’s funny…. the fake accounts are lame but nothing wrong with the real employees tooting their own horns.
@mike#30 I agree I see so many inflated numbers – easily manipulated.
I think the more shocking thing is that people think it’s the norm, and are fine with it. It’s easy to get caught doing these types of astroturfing campaigns, and the smarter PR and marketing people have abandoned such tactics.
This is probably been known internally, and nothing has been done to stop it should make you concerned with a lot of things about the application. Where are the internal marketing controls? Where are the internal PR controls?