The software awards scam

[canetoad]

The software awards scam
Published 16 August 2007

I put out a new product a couple of weeks ago. This new product has so far won 16 different awards and recommendations from software download sites. Some of them even emailed me messages of encouragement such as “Great job, we’re really impressed!”. I should be delighted at this recognition of the quality of my software, except that the ’software’ doesn’t even run. This is hardly surprising when you consider that it is just a text file with the words “this program does nothing at all” repeated a few times and then renamed as an .exe. The PAD file that described the software contains the description “This program does nothing at all”. The screenshot I submitted (below) was similarly blunt and to the point:

Even the name of the software, “awardmestars”, was a bit of a giveaway. And yet it still won 16 ‘awards’. Here they are:....

The rest of this outrageously funny story is here: http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/16/the-software-awards-scam/

[Shardik]

1. I have wondered about this sort of thing.

Very humorous and enlightening.

[hobbit709]

2. That's a hoot