The usefulness of a software product becomes obvious to consumers only after they get to experience it and, upon experiencing it, they may reach different conclusions regarding its true value. We examine the problem of designing free software trials under a general learning function. Our...

There are instances when a consumer's overall utility depends on her own utility as well as on the utility of another individual (e.g., in case of shared consumption with another individual, or in case of buying a gift for someone). In such instances, in order to make a choice that maximizes her...

Personalization and recommendation systems require knowledge about the users (user profiles), in order to be able to target products, promotions and advertisements. The faster the profiles are learnt, the sooner the site can start benefiting from these systems. We study how a site can learn the...

Sponsored search advertising has become an important venue for firms to compete for consumers. As a result, many keywords attract a large number of bidders, where the competing advertisers could be quite heterogeneous. We examine whether this heterogeneity impacts how consumers perceive and...