Director, Product Engineering at TELUS Health. Coding for 15+ years, a TDD advocate, PHP fan, with an interest in Complexity Theory and a History Degree.
The Fakers App, was launched in 2012 and over a number of years became a very successful product. The app did follower analysis on Twitter to highlight how many followers were either fake or inactive on a user's account. This was a significant issue at the time as many people were buying fake followers for their Twitter accounts. This meant fellow users and organisations couldn't be sure how popular a Twitter account really was.
The app was used by over 1.5 million people, and it helped those users block and remove 10s of millions of fake followers from their Twitter accounts. There was a greate deal of media coverage across the world including an article in Mashable and in an interview on CNN.
It was closed down in early 2020 as it was felt the app's time had passed and it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. All of the code from the app was open sourced on GitHub so other developers might be able to repurpose some of the ideas contained within.
There was also nice feedback from users of the app once it was closed down, this was touching and highlighted its value to people and organisations.
So. Farewell then @StatusPeople. You were a splendid fake follower checker for 8 years. I'll need to take that slide out of my social media presentations. I wish @RobDWaller all the best for the future. https://t.co/OUZ1Km9xL0
— Andrew Bruce Smith (@andismit) March 30, 2020
I am very proud of the Fakers App, it had a significant impact on social media when it was released and for many years afterwards. But most importantly it taught me a great deal as a person and a software developer.
The Fakers App received a great deal of media coverage for a number of years. below are some of the highlights.
Forbes gave us a mention in their article about social media fame and how much it costs.
USA Today mention StatusPeople in their article regarding Social Media click farms.
NDTV interview me for their progamme on Fake Social Meida and Politics, about 11 mins in.
The New York Times mention StatusPeople in their article about how Fake Followers, Likes and Views on Social Media has become a multi-million dollar industry.
BBC Spain asked me for my opinion on Nate Silver and his work on big data in relation to the US Elections. You might need to use Google Translate for this one.
I was interviewed by the Evening Standard in relation to Fake Followers on Twitter and my Fakers App.
I appeared on BBC Radio 4 show You and Yours to discuss social media spam. I appear about 7 minutes in.
I appeared on CNN to discuss fake and spam followers on Twitter.
I was interviewed and mentioned in the New York Times in relation to the Fake Followers Apps.
The Fakers App got a mention in Mashable.
The Fakers App got a mention in FastCompany.
The Fakers App got a mention in The Telegraph in relation to former MP Louis Mensch's Twitter follower problems.