Assuming the use of the technique spreads will it have a self defeating affect whereby having everyone 'spam' these core agents that people will begin to change their behavioyr in some way?
That's exactly what will happen. The weakness of much social science is people make judgments based on no external influence. Once the influence happens, the outcomes change. This is also why market inefficiencies disappear after they've been published. In more specific terms, you might accept 4 spams from a friend, but not 20 Candy Crush invites.
Well, if I would want to communicate a concept, FOSS, for example, I would create lots of various packaging for that idea: stories, infographics, videos etc. to prevent saturation.
That's a good point. Most marketers would only want to target a segment, say "Women under 40 who have children" which would be a different seed group than "Males 18-25". BUT - I can imagine a good deal of overlap since the algorithm seems to select people with highly diverse friends.
Finding the group and interacting with it inherently means they change the dynamic of the group. That's why this is such a hard thing to do and why the sensational headline is silly and wrong.
"...Solve the Fundamental Problem of Viral Marketing" Nothing is solved. This is just another tool to use for a while.
