> Facebook's App Center has a distinct advantage over alternatives: they have much more information on the users of their apps. Also, because ratings are based on real names, they'll have a much easier time preventing ratings spam.
How bad is the ratings spam problem? (I'm not a mobile app developer)
Don't Apple and Google require a credit card to have an account, which means there's at least some barrier to making accounts to spam? They also have data on if a user actually downloaded an app they're rating, if they've made many ratings before or if this is a brand new account, etc. Meanwhile, there are already "Like" farms that you can pay to boost like counts on Facebook for your content.
It seems like if there's motivation to spam ratings, Facebook won't have a great advantage over the problem.
You don't actually need a credit card to open an iTunes account now. You didn't need one when I opened a Google account either and I don't think that's changed.
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> Facebook's App Center has a distinct advantage over alternatives: they have much more information on the users of their apps. Also, because ratings are based on real names, they'll have a much easier time preventing ratings spam.
How bad is the ratings spam problem? (I'm not a mobile app developer)
Don't Apple and Google require a credit card to have an account, which means there's at least some barrier to making accounts to spam? They also have data on if a user actually downloaded an app they're rating, if they've made many ratings before or if this is a brand new account, etc. Meanwhile, there are already "Like" farms that you can pay to boost like counts on Facebook for your content.
It seems like if there's motivation to spam ratings, Facebook won't have a great advantage over the problem.
You don't actually need a credit card to open an iTunes account now. You didn't need one when I opened a Google account either and I don't think that's changed.
Google accounts don't require CC numbers.