TechCrunch
Apple Froze App Store Rankings On Friday, And Odd Behavior Continues
In the last three years, the only times Apple has ever frozen its App Store rankings has been over the holidays, so it’s interesting to note that the company actually froze rankings for a total of 8 hours on Friday, and things still aren’t quite back to normal, in terms of the store’s usual behavior and ranking results. The change to the App Store could possibly indicate either an intentional freeze on Apple’s part, or even bandwidth concerns or other bugs and glitches.
The iOS App Store didn’t change between 10 AM and around 6 PM EST on Friday, essentially missing the expected update intervals at 12 and 3 PM EST. Meanwhile, the 5:50 PM ET change was minor, making it difficult to determine at the time whether it was the resumption of normal activity, or just a temporary blip.
Though the store has now seen activity resume over the weekend and into Monday, the changes in app rankings now being observed are still unexpected, with historically highly ranked apps dropping 10 spots instead of 1, while other previously ranked top 20 apps not being able to achieve higher ranks than 40, in other cases.
The changes, of course, come at a time when Apple has just released new devices with the iPhone 5s and 5c, whose launch also coincided with an update to Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 7. With smartphone sales topping analyst expectations at 9 million devices sold through the launch weekend, it has not been one hundred percent smooth sailing for Apple with the debut of its new hardware and software. For example, Apple’s servers crumbled under launch day strains last week, as users rushed to set up their new iPhones or download iOS 7. We’ve also heard reports of Apple engineers being called in over the weekend, forced to work non-stop for over 24 hours as issues arose.
But in addition to bandwidth concerns, there’s the possibility that Apple chose to freeze the App Store rankings out of caution to keep rankings from fluctuating during the big rush. Mobile app marketing startup Fiksu, which sent out an advisory message to clients after spotting the freeze and provided us with more details on these changes, speculates that Apple could have also been heading off an anticipated app marketing rush, similar to what happens around Christmas. The speculation is that the company could have frozen rankings in order to prevent manipulation – or even the appearance of manipulation – of the App Store charts.
Alternately, it could have also been related to a push of new App Store algorithm testing or the finalization of other changes to its algorithms, which we reported on last month. The company then began to update app positions every three hours on the consumer-facing App Store, in efforts to prevent publishers from using automated means to game the charts as the slowdown would give Apple time to identify and correct for short download bursts.
Still, Fiksu notes that even though overloaded servers have been common in previous Apple launch events, the high demand has not before affected app rankings in such a way. But the firm says that it’s just too early to tell if the changes are a temporary, volume-based incident, or are the first steps involving a more systematic change on Apple’s part.
We’re keeping an eye on the situation with the App Store, and will update if we hear more, or if things ever to go back to normal – or whatever the “new” normal of the iOS 7 App Store may be.
Gmail's Ongoing Email Slow Down Nearing Resolution
Good news! Today you can blame your non-responsiveness to all those important emails you’ve been ignoring on Google itself. The company’s online email service Gmail has been experiencing issues leading to delayed emails and attachments failing to download, the company confirmed. Earlier this morning, Google said an estimated 0.24 percent of its Gmail user base was affected by these problems, but in an update released later this afternoon, the delays were said to being affecting “less than 50 percent of Gmail users.”
Given the wording of that announcement, it sounded like, at first, things were getting worse instead of better. Gmail has some 425 million users, according to the company’s public announcement detailing the size of its user base, revealed last summer at its Google I/O developer conference.
Google has been providing regular updates regarding the situation throughout the day, the first appearing at 10:25 AM ET, noting that the company was then starting to invest reports of an issue with Gmail. This was followed by an update over an hour later which informed customers that delays were involved and some attachments were failing to load.
Updates released at 12:43 PM, 1:45 PM, 2:05 PM, and 2:45 PM ET so far, only said that the team is continuing to investigate the problem and will update when there’s more information available.
At 3:00 PM ET, the company added that the service has been restored for some users, and it expects full resolution within an hour, but this timeframe may change. Google did not say which percentage of the “less than 50 percent” of users have had service restored.
We reached out to Google via email for comment on what may have caused this issue, and other details, but you know…
SEC Allows General Solicitation, Effective Today: What Changed And What To Watch Out For
Today, the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission’s final rules allowing general solicitation went into effect. In the fundraising context, general solicitation means publicly advertising the fact that you’re raising money. Previously, this was a big no-no.
The Way it Was
The most important securities regulations for startups is Regulation D, or Reg D. In a nutshell, Reg D provides exemptions from the general rule that all securities have to be registered with the SEC. Registration is a complex and expensive process that would in itself sink many small companies, so Reg D is a big deal. Blowing Reg D exemptions keeps securities lawyers up at night.
The most useful of the exemptions Reg D provides is Rule 506, which doesn’t have a dollar-amount cap. However, Rule 506 has two catches. First, companies can only raise funds from an unlimited number of accredited investors plus up to 35 non-accredited investors. For individuals, an accredited investor is someone with a net worth over a million dollars, or who makes $200K per year (or $300K with a spouse). The second catch was that companies couldn’t advertise the fact that they were raising money. The practical effect of these two catches was that (1) startups could only raise money from rich people, and (2) networks of investors were really important.
What Changes Today
As of today, the ban on advertising the fact that you’re fundraising goes away, but this, too, comes with a few catches. Under the new rules, if you advertise your offering, you have a heightened duty to make sure you only take money from accredited investors. Companies already had to be careful about this under the old rules, but the new rules are more stringent and the SEC’s staff has promised more vigilance.
Does this mean attendees will have to bring their tax returns to get in to demo days? Hopefully not, but we’ll see. At a recent public meeting, the SEC staff didn’t have great answers.
Points Of Uncertainty
As AngelList CEO and COO Naval Ravikant and Kevin Laws pointed out here this weekend, the SEC’s new rules use lawyers’ favorite weasel word: “reasonable.” Specifically, companies raising money have to take “reasonable steps” to make sure they don’t take money from unaccredited investors. A new part of Rule 506, subsection (c)(2)(ii) gives a few specific examples of what the SEC would consider reasonable, including looking at the potential investor’s tax filings or getting a verification letter from the investor’s lawyer, accountant, or SEC-registered broker-dealer or investment adviser.
There has been a lot of griping over these verification requirements. Yes, this will impose some costs on the process, but it’s not the end of the world. AngelList is taking an interesting step and turning this into opportunity by providing verification services. The SEC describes its approach to verification as “principles-based,” so these are not the only possible reasonable verification steps. Other angel investor groups could get into verification, as well, to help their members.
You Can Still Do It The Old Way
General solicitation is optional. If you’ve raised money under the old rules and are comfortable with them, you can stick to what you know and play it safe. If you do, the heightened verification rules don’t apply. I expect many entrepreneurs will play it safe and sit out general solicitation, at least for now, and let someone else take the first SEC enforcement bullet.
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