Incentivizing sharing in social networks

An online service provider system configured to simulate and optimize an online incentive network without a need to concentrate on identifying a relatively small set of individuals with high network values and incentivizing the relatively small set of individuals to adopt a product, in the hope that the small set of individuals would influence many others to also adopt this product, the method of simulating and optimizing the online incentive network performed via an incentivized sharing model that (i) takes as input, parameters of organic sharing of an existing network to predict an effect of an incentive and (ii) provides, after purchasing a product, a reward if the user provides, via a dedicated link, an offer for the product to other users resulting in at least a threshold number (N) or more others purchasing the product, the system comprising:

• one or more storage devices hosted by a deal broker and configured to store online incentive network data including data regarding sharing between users of the online incentive network;
• one or more storage devices hosted by the deal broker and including one or more applications configured to optimize a graph model for incentivized deal sharing for one or more products or services provided by a merchant, wherein the graph model comprises providing a user, after that user purchases a particular deal from a merchant, a reward only if that user shares the particular deal with a threshold number of other users who also purchase the deal from the merchant;
• and
• one or more processing devices hosted by the deal broker and configured to:
• receive one or more input parameters and the stored online incentive network data;
• apply the parameters and the stored online incentive network data to each of a plurality of graph models for incentivized deal sharing each of the graph models are configured to accurately determine likely outcomes of various incentive scenarios, the various incentive scenario associated with a plurality of values for the threshold number of the other users, the threshold number of the other users being a number of other users that must purchase the deal for the user to receive the incentive, wherein each of the plurality of graph models are modular and configured to use data corresponding to user behavior of a particular company interested in putting monetary incentives in place, enabling testing and comparing of the various incentive scenarios, by:
• simulating each of a plurality of scenarios based on the parameters, including selecting a value for the threshold number of other users that must purchase the deal for the user to receive the incentive, and the stored online incentive network data in the online incentive network;
• determining a deal broker's profitability of each simulated scenario;
• storing the determined deal broker's profitability of each simulated scenario in a decision matrix;
• receiving feedback through additional accumulated data to modify each simulated scenario in the decision matrix based on actual performance associated with the particular deal;
• identifying, from among a subset of each simulated scenario meeting a predefined threshold, at least one profitable model to be implemented;
• and
• selecting a simulated scenario based on the determined profitability of each simulated scenario identified as meeting the predefined threshold, the selected simulated scenario being one that would increase the deal broker's profitability to an acceptable level, wherein selecting the simulated scenario includes selecting one or more parameters of the incentive sharing scenario including the selected value for the threshold number of users that must purchase the deal for the user to receive the incentive by determining the selected value at which an additional volume of shares outweigh an associated incentive cost;
• and
• provide, by way of the deal broker, a graph model associated with the selected one or more parameters of the incentive sharing scenario, including the selected value for the threshold number of other users, to the users of the online incentive network including to an online or mobile interface associated with each user of the online incentive network.