Sequential pricing for social networks with multi-state diffusion*

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Victor O.K. Li, Chair Professor of Information Engineering, The University of Hong Kong
• Thursday 12 September 2013, 11:00-12:00
• Gabor Seminar Room, 611.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Lauren E Noto.

Abstract

The rapid development of online social networks (OSN) makes viral marketing through the word-of-mouth effect possible. Designing effective marketing strategy is critical in monetizing social networks. However, most existing studies focus on conducting effective influence maximization analysis to propagate information widely instead of explicitly incorporating the pricing factor to design intelligent marketing strategies. In this paper, we study the sequential pricing models in which a monopoly seller iteratively posts a sequence of public unique prices for a product in stages, and any interested buyer can buy the product at the posted price at a particular stage if his valuation is above the posted price. Specifically, our model is built on the multi-state diffusion scheme where an active user may be in the “AWARE” and “ADOPT” states. Users in “ADOPT” state could influence their neighbors’ valuation for the given product. To realize the goal of revenue maximization, we develop a Dynamic Programming Based Heuristic (DPBH) to obtain the optimal pricing sequence. Application of the DPBH in the revenue maximization problem shows that it performs well in the expected revenue achieved and in running time. This leads to fundamental ramifications to many related OSN marketing applications.

*Joint work with PhD students Guolin Niu and Yi Long

Brief Biography

Victor O.K. Li received SB, SM, EE and ScD degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1981, respectively. He is Chair Professor of Information Engineering and Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). He has also served as Assoc. Dean of Engineering and Managing Director of Versitech Ltd., the technology transfer and commercial arm of HKU . He served on the board of China.com Ltd., and now serves on the board of Sunevision Holdings Ltd. and Anxin-China Holdings Ltd., listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Previously, he was Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, California, USA , and Director of the USC Communication Sciences Institute. Sought by government, industry, and academic organizations, he has lectured and consulted extensively around the world. He has received numerous awards, including the PRC Ministry of Education Changjiang Chair Professorship at Tsinghua University, the UK Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Visiting Fellowship in Communications, the Croucher Foundation Senior Research Fellowship, and the Order of the Bronze Bauhinia Star, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China. He is a Registered Professional Engineer and a Fellow of the IEEE , the IAE , and the HKIE .

This talk is part of the COMMSP Seminar series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Andrea Picciau's list
• COMMSP & CP list
• COMMSP Seminar
• Featured talks
• Gabor Seminar Room, 611
• SAP Talks

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.