Slide Caught Posting Fake Positive Reviews For Their Own App

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1. Chris
   

   April 3rd, 2008 at 4:20 am

   Companies do this all the time. On download.com, on digg.com, ect… It’s considered normal by now I think.

2. Yakov
   

   April 3rd, 2008 at 4:26 am

   nice catch, now, ask how many reall users they have!

3. jenkins
   

   April 3rd, 2008 at 4:33 am

   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!

4. Roman
   

   April 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 am

   sad

5. Andy Gongea
   

   April 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 am

   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

6. Caramelhoneys
   

   April 3rd, 2008 at 4:45 am

   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….

7. Roman
   

   April 3rd, 2008 at 4:46 am

   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..

8. Shafqat
   

   April 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 am

   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.

9. John
   

   April 3rd, 2008 at 4:50 am

   I dont think this is the first time this has happened it seems to be happening all over the place… sad very sad

10. Vipsy
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:02 am

    And the below slide user, has posted a nice profile pic too

    http://www.facebook.com/s.php?.....amp;init=r

11. avinash
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:06 am

    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..

12. Angiogenesis
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:08 am

    lol @ Caramelhoneys !

13. Jonathan
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 am

    Hey companies even do this on techcrunch, blame their marketing deps. There should severe penalties / legislation to at least regulate this.

14. Patrick
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:20 am

    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.

15. gabbriel
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:26 am

    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.

16. Who don't
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:28 am

    Who don’t honestly, let’s not be hypocrite here

17. Adora SlideEight
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:37 am

    What!! im REAL!!!!

18. Steve
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:37 am

    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!

19. Jason Jenkins
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:48 am

    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..

20. meh
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:50 am

    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.

21. BlogReader
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:52 am

    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.

22. Tim
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:53 am

    @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.

23. TechcrunchBook
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 6:14 am

    Slide + Digg = $0

24. Josh Saunders
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 6:23 am

    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.

25. Paul Short
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 6:24 am

    “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??

26. Paul
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 6:35 am

    @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://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

27. Lina De Martinez
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 6:39 am

    Curious thing is, I haven´t even started…

    App’s rating suddenly cut in half?
    http://forum.developers.facebo.....p?id=12851

    From the looks of it, no one has realized what is going on…

    Is this porn?
    http://forum.developers.facebo.....p?id=11408

28. Will
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 6:42 am

    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.

29. You all crack me up
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 7:01 am

    @23

    Slide + Digg + RockYou = $0.00

    Slide + Digg + RockYou + Facebook = $100.00

    Slide + Digg + RockYou + Facebook + Twitter = $0.00

30. Raskin
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 7:05 am

    classy. just the behavior you would come to expect from a $200 million dollar company.

31. mike
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 7:14 am

    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.

32. kuldeep
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 7:14 am

    How did you tracked it down?

33. Peter Cooper
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 7:29 am

    Love the music choice here! Perhaps blog posts need theme music like scenes in movies This one perfectly sums up this story.

34. Tekin Tatar
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 7:40 am

    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.

35. I Am Not Duncan Riley
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 am

    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.

36. VTFootballGrad
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 7:44 am

    Just like a spamming company to write great reviews that helps them spam your friends through your own profile.

37. Gubatron
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 7:56 am

    Let’s all poke Adora
    http://www.facebook.com/poke.php?id=1069530799

38. Andrew
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 8:00 am

    I appreciate the Ben Folds love…

39. Seth
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 8:03 am

    companies.do.this.all.the.time

    is it right? no. is it newsworthy? not really. who cares. leave max alone… RIGHT NOW!!!

40. Jason Jenkins
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 8:06 am

    @30
    so truuuuuuuuuuuuu!

41. dan
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 8:22 am

    people are leaving Slide, tough environment, especially in PM, some dev

42. Baliban81
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 8:25 am

    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.

43. bs
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 8:37 am

    hahahah OWNED

    I fucking hate slide

44. Phil
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 8:44 am

    @38
    everyone hates slide, nobody is going to leave max alone.

45. Ilya the russian
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 am

    their comments sound like detergent commercial

46. jenkins
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 8:52 am

    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!

47. Bovice
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 9:10 am

    Seth - is that an unforgivable reference?

48. EH
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 9:25 am

    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?

49. antje wilsch
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 9:41 am

    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.

50. Jeremy Pepper
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 am

    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?

51. Anonymous
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 am

    Slide does a lot of shady things. Include having a network of anonymous untraceable servers that constantly crawl Myspace and Facebook and index users’ data–info that they give out to competitors of Myspace and Facebook as leverage in business deals. They probably did this to optimize FunWall to show up higher than RockYou’s Superwall on the Facebook application directory.

52. Average TC reader
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 am

    Damn that SeeqPod© widget is so COOL! And it’s so EASY to email it to your friends or get the embed code for your own site. Hmm…except the text is a little cut off on the popups. I’ll have to fix that. I mean THEY’LL have to fix that….damn.

53. john
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 9:58 am

    yeah, whatever.
    everybody posts fake reviews for their apps through friends’ or own fake accounts.
    no biggie.

54. Larry Larrikin
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 10:23 am

    Slide is a junk company with junk products so it’s not really a surprise. There is a big difference between posting to tell people about your new product and posting multiple fake reviews. Maybe their valuation is $500mm virtual dollars.

55. Robert Lancer
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 10:29 am

    What douche bags, I hate Slide, I always get spammed from them.

56. JB
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 10:34 am

    #52 and all the others above who say it’s OK…

    No doubt you work for Slide and are here to “spin” the comments.

57. Andrew
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 10:54 am

    Wow, really?

58. FakeSlide
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 11:19 am

    Leave slide alone! Slide is amazing I can’t live without it!! They’d never write fake reviews of themselves.

59. Azhar
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 11:20 am

    This is a pity coming from a company founded by Paypal founder. Whatever happened to “innovate and users will like your product and review it.” This shows total lack of innovation from these widget companies. All they do is copy stuff from one another or steal ideas from some teenager and market it better because they have more money. This is really killing the widget market.

60. Harry Wang
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 11:32 am

    Boycott Slide Now! Boycott Slide Now!

    What do we want? Brains. When do we want it? Brains.

    Harry “always gets his protests confused” Wang

61. Slideshows
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    hey guys…check out the comments on this video
    http://www.flixya.com/video/1059371/Bowling_Trick

    Try checking out comments for few more videos. Not a single comments is from a HUMAN.

62. Mike P.
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 12:08 pm

    “Slide writing fake reviews on their own reviews board is hilarious! is that really the behavior of a company worth $500M?”

    I’ve seen worse from companies worth over $50B

63. Adam
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    What is this - Valleywag?

64. carhug
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 1:21 pm

    Yipes. Hopefully a learning lesson for any others tempted to go this route.

65. MrCashyCash
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 1:34 pm

    If you’re dumb enough to even consider making a “slide show,”
    you get what’s coming to you.

66. Lynn
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 1:35 pm

    ff

67. Eric Dewhirst
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 1:35 pm

    It is bad karma for sure.

    The thing about FB reviews is that you really can’t control that stuff and it makes it honest. I think you gotta roll with what you got and let people say what they want. We get some great reviews and then some seriously nasty ones - that is the name of the game.

    http://www.facebook.com/apps/a.....7507616578

    What I like is that at least with FB when someone gives a review you can see if their legit - if they don’t have friends then they are fake. I think it is pretty hard to fake a bunch of real profiles - sure you can do it but it is not an easy thing to do. Like I said this is bad karma!

    Cheers - Eric

68. Fidel Cast
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 1:43 pm

    Who uses FoolBook anymore??

69. Cyndy Aleo-Carreira
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 2:32 pm

    It kills me that people get all up in arms about this. It’s been done since the dawn of the Internet, and it will continue to happen. Take a look at JBoss… four years ago they were busted with folks from the CEO on down astroturfing on Slashdot as well as sites like The Server Side. Didn’t seem to hurt them when it came time for Red Hat to purchase. Whole Foods’ CEO did it so successfully on Yahoo Finance boards for years that he may likely have been able to buy the competitor he bashed. Some companies like the subtler approach of pumping themselves up and trashing competitors.

70. Duncan Riley
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    Average TC reader #52
    I thought so as well. Much better catalog at Seeqpod than Last.fm who only had 30 seconds of Bad Idea.

    Andrew #38
    happy to oblige

71. johns
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    This is so common and makes it hard to believe many reviews for anything.

    When some kind of voting poll or award comes up, EVERY company I have worked for has told the employees to help tip the balance by voting multiple times.

72. Elliott Ng
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 3:19 pm

    They did use real names and the company name in the account name.

73. Yuri Ammosov
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 3:59 pm

    Since when NOT HIDING your identity is called DISHONESTY ? Did I miss something? Did I fall asleep for 100 years? Am I called Rip Van Winkle?

    Would you actually prefer stupid and open people over smart and deceptive?

    GIVE ME ANOTHER SILICON VALLEY !

74. Lina De Martinez
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 4:11 pm

    Perhaps a good starting point for all would be to realize that there are literally THOUSANDS of fake profiles out there on Facebook. This idea that “if they don´t have friends proves they are fake” is not always the case.

    We have had access to all the evidence… enough to prove you are wrong.

    Just take a look at this topic, posted at the Developers´ Forum some days back:

    http://forum.developers.facebo.....01&p=3

    Goes to show people knew this was going on… or did they?

75. Lina De Martinez
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm

    Wonder what the New York Times is doing research on right now?

    Slide slides into some cash
    http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/.....some-cash/

    Perhaps they are watching this video from You Tube…

    Rich Media, Poor Democracy
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related

76. Roman
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Facebook group to boycott Slide & RockYou for the hell of it..created 1 min ago
    join if you want
    http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7728654996

77. Fabian Schonholz
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 5:37 pm

    One word: Hilarious!!

78. Faramir
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 6:10 pm

    Yah. Hard to trust these new reviews coming up. It looks fake, this confirms it. Slide should really watch their ass. From where I’m at, do anything but don’t get caught. Slide should really take on some stealth training (or stupidity, if that applies).

    Fara- http://www.pickmeuptoday.com

79. joe
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 10:13 pm

    The fish rots at the head..

80. Albert
    

    April 3rd, 2008 at 11:41 pm

    Not surprised. There are a lot of slimy people on Facebook who self-promote themselves. I admit that I’ve done it before, but just don’t bother anymore. Just let it organically and virally grow - what’s the point in making all these accounts?

    Slide… tsk tsk.

81. senatuskienlee
    

    April 4th, 2008 at 4:56 am

    Click forward to see what happens next.

    [slide’s other low-brow activity generating tactic]

82. senatuskienlee
    

    April 4th, 2008 at 4:59 am

    slide(number) is slide’s family last name
    appdev is rockyou’s family last name

83. Arc Tangent
    

    April 4th, 2008 at 1:48 pm

    Self promotion is the hallmark of wise startups. The only difference here is, these guys got caught. You wouldn’t have heard of many sites, had it not been for their “unethical” guerilla tactics. Get over it: Everyone is out for a buck, the really smart ones just cover their tracks.

84. Lance Smith
    

    April 5th, 2008 at 9:40 am

    WAIT…WAIT…What if: someone wants to destroy the reputation of a company, and purposely post promotion that are so obviously not well-done promotion-reviews. I’m not talking about Slide here, I’m talking about possibilities. You never know if there are such people exist.

85. Lina De Martinez
    

    April 5th, 2008 at 4:34 pm

    “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.”

    This is a joke, right?

    ANTI-SPAM SQUAD - Adora Cheung (creator)
    http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11737790158