Want a discount? Show your karma

Marketers are looking for ways to more effectively use viral social media marketing. At their request, scientists are developing new algorithms to identify trendsetters, that is, opinion leaders, those people who have real influence in their circle. In addition, they are developing new strategies for more efficient marketing of goods, taking into account information from social networks, writes New Scientist .

Jason Hartline of Northwestern University of Illinois developed a special computer model to study the demand for products in social networks. It turned out that if someone buys a product, then a chain reaction begins that affects his acquaintances. The wave goes on the first circle in the social network, then on the second and subsides with time. Jason Hartline suggests that marketers use this information and embed special trackers on social networks that will track the purchase of goods by each user (such a system has recently been implemented on Facebook, for example), and then set discounts for those users who are affected by social demand.

In other words, the price of a product for a particular user will be determined depending on its position in the social network, well, trendsetters can receive any product at all for free.
')
Hartline’s scientific research is detailed in his report ( PDF ) at the WWW 2008 conference.