Osama is dead and Obama has 4 more years. But a small unknown company called GOOxxx still rules the word. They control the Android operating system, the store, the ads in the app, the statistics and the site to translate the reviews. Ops, I forgot the browser that I am using…
I think they also have a search engine, forgot it’s name
And yes, there are other app stores. They give me 3% of my users.
Don’t misunderstand me - I think this company has great products (that’s why I use them, right?). But if this is not a giant monopoly I probably left my school class years ago to the bathroom and forgot to return.
Now, why I am writing what everyone knows?
My name is David and I am the writer of HandWallet – a free expense manager.
5 month ago I wrote a long post about how frustrated I am because no one downloads my app, located in place 500+ (I stopped counting after I lost feeling in my finger). Since the first few poor days (and thanks to good advices I got here) things improved: I have now +50,000 downloads – a nice number for an app that is not a game. I can now get enough money from ads for a GOOD beer in the end of the day AND peanuts (not a lousy beer in a cheap place like in the first days).
So the sun started to shine and I even gave food to my dog (read older post).
One regular morning I found a love message from the giant in my incoming email: " 7-Day Notification of Google Play Developer Term Violation"
After the first hard attack I started to read and found the reason:
This is a notification that your application, Expense Manager - HandWallet, with package ID mediavision.handwallet, is currently in violation of our developer terms. REASON FOR WARNING: Violation of the spam provisions of the Content Policy.
• Do not post repetitive content.
• Product descriptions should not be misleading or loaded with keywords in an attempt to manipulate ranking or relevancy in the store’s search results.
Yes, I had a short list of keywords in the end of my app description (with the title Keywords). Like many other apps (including my competitors). What’s so wrong with that? All words were relevant. None of them were "sex, “Britney Spears” or “angry birds (I now understand why all the birds in GOOxxx store are angry :@)”. I removed these keywords immediately (back to the cheap beer but better than nothing).
But what is the “repetitive content”? Is it illegal to explain the concept from different aspects? Am I repeating myself?
So I need your help again-
Please have a look on the product description here (after I removed the keywords) and let me know if I’ll be executed in 4 days…
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mediavision.handwallet
And yes – if you need a good expense manager you are watching the right place…
As you can see you might have only 4 days to enjoy downloading. If the date now is after 13 Nov 2012 and the link is broken it is not your browser problem, only the company that created it… (hmm, now that I think about it, 13 in NOT a lucky number, right?!?)