Definitely... the technique to direct marketers isn't new. The article referenced is just showing that the big boys are finally starting to do a variation of this.

I suggest this technique to select clients thinking about developing a product.

I had a client in a non-IM niche who wanted to develop a product.

Sure we did incentive based market research via forums, Yahoo answers etc.

We tossed out a SurveyMonkey.com questionnaire to his list.

But I knew that the real answer of what users would actually buy will not come from what they SAY they'd buy...

So we took the above factors into consideration and tossed up "salespages" for 3 variations of a product. 2 were different products. 1 was simply a pitch for physical of 1 of the 2 vs. digital.

Not the most accurate or scientific of testing...

But we then tossed some promotions behind it (Twitter buzz and PPC).

And we found a clear winner as to which product users were willing to click the "order" link to. Once they clicked the order link they received "we're updating our course and adding even MORE... it's currently not availab... blah blah... if you'd like, register below and we'll notify you of this or SIMILAR OFFERS..."

That setup worked like magic.