A few months back Google announced that it had over 700,000 apps in its store, with such a wide choice of product available, one of the best ways to choose which one to buy is to look at the reviews and base your decision on the thoughts and experiences of others.
However, we all know that its so easy to have apps with tons of fake reviews that rate it really highly as posts can be submitted anonymously…so its only when ‘real’ people that have used the app actually take the effort to write a true review does this plan fall flat on its face, but one bad review in one hundred really won’t make that much impact in the sales revenue.
So Google have taken steps to get rid of fake reviews by introducing the steps that you have to have a Google+ account in order to leave a review. The account details will then be displayed alongside new reviews of Android apps on its Play store, if you already leave reviews next time you try you’ll be presented with a pop-up box that will tell you about the new policy, and encourage you to sign up to Google+ if you haven’t already.
We think this is quite a smart move from Google, not only does it make the review system transparent, there literally will be a face to the name (which Google+’s terms and conditions state must match”the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you”.) but also it won’t harm the growth of its own social network, which continues to trail behind the networking force that is Facebook.
So thumbs up for trying to get rid of the ability to leave fake reviews…will it help with taking on Facebook in the social networking world, we think not, but only time will tell!