So BBM for Android and iOS finally made it out after some delays. And how is it? “Really great user friendly and smooth” apparently. At least, according the legion of bots that’s leaving positive reviews on Google Play.
Max Baxter-Reynolds spotted the abnormality, and as far as fake reviews go, these are baaaaad.
If you go comb through the Play Store now, you can find dozens upon dozens of the things, all with virtually identical text but puzzlingly not all four or five star ratings.
But BlackBerry couldn’t be that dumb, right? That would be a different (and serious!) kind of judgment lapse than putting out silly music videos. This almost definitely isn’t a BlackBerry orchestrated “plot”.
Eden suggests it could be paid reviews from some third-party partner, or even more hilariously a fake BBM app that’s simple misaimed its bot reviews and hit the actual, official BBM app by accident.
We’ve reached out to BlackBerry to see if the company has any comment or explanation but we’re willing to bet they’re just as surprised as we are, since this is a pretty laughably executed scheme. They’ve already told blogger Terence Eden that they’re aware of something fishy going on. But it looks like somebody out there is thrilled about BBM for Android. Or maybe just some sentient botnet. [Terence Eden’s Blog via Hacker News]