Microsoft Invents Price-Gouging the Least Influential

theodp writes "In the world envisioned by Microsoft's just-published patent application for Social Marketing, monopolists will maximize revenue by charging prices inversely related to the perceived influence an individual has on others. Microsoft gives an example of a pricing model that charges different people $0, $5, $10, $20, or $25 for the identical item based on the influence the purchaser wields. A presentation describing the revenue optimization scheme earned one of the three inventors applause (MS-Research video), and the so-called 'influence and exploit' strategies were also featured at WWW 2008 (PDF). The invention jibes nicely with Bill Gates's pending patents for identifying influencers. Welcome to the brave new world of analytics."

Comments

Works for me

[ironicsky]

Hey, works for me... Microsoft gave me a free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit for hosting a Windows 7 party... I am influencial, I get free software!

Re:Works for me

[Vintermann]

The golden rule of multi-level marketing: Although friendship cannot be bought, it can still be redeemed for cash.

There's only one thing to do!

[Interoperable]

Let's all friend each other on Facebook...the entire /. community. We will all be considered exceptionally influential and will therefore be given free stuff.

Bing

[Tom]

And someone just said yesterday that the privacy policy of Bing is better than the one for Google.

Looks like they have the next few revisions already in mind, with substantial changes.

Re:Well...

[Phrogman]

And their prices will drop accordingly :P