When it comes to winning in the App Store, one PR firm has discovered a dynamite strategy: throw ethics out the window. Reverb Communications, a PR firm that represents dozens of game publishers and developers, has managed to find astounding success on Apple’s App Store for its clients. Among its various tactics? It hires a team of interns to trawl iTunes and other community forums posing as real users, and has them write positive reviews for their client’s applications. Yeah, that 5-star iTunes app review you saw for the once top-5 paid app Enigmo? It might not be written by a real user, but rather by Pangea Software’s PR firm.

Reverb isn’t the first to try and game the user review process, but they are definitely one of the most blatant cases. [...]

This must be one of the worst cases of astroturfing yet uncovered. Actually, more like fraud.

This is just a snip from MobileCrunch's story. Read the whole thing and weep for legitimate PR practitioners.

(Via Susan Getgood http://twitter.com/sgetgood/statuses/3476386731 )