Bot becomes trusted member of social network

So some guys in Italy were doing research in social networks and found surprising behavior when their bot's regular visits to people were noticed. Turns out people could see that and responded by trusting the bot, so they started making random recommendations, which people who trusted the bot responded to quite well.

Social aping online can be incredibly simple (on the Internet, nobody knows you're Eliza) and as always I want to extrapolate to a bot that can operate a simple small business.