Geffen realized that CDNow could link directly from the artist on its website to Geffen's website, bypassing the CDNow home page and going directly to an artist's music page. Geffen asked CDNow if it could design a program where CDNow would handle the order fulfillment. The management at Geffen wanted to sell its artists' CDs directly from its website but did not want to implement this capability itself. The idea for remote purchasing originally arose from conversations with music label Geffen Records in the fall of 1994. These websites could also offer a link that would take visitors directly to CDNow to purchase the albums. CDNow had the idea that music-oriented websites could review or list albums on their pages that their visitors might be interested in purchasing. In November 1994, CDNow launched its BuyWeb program. In July 1998 PC Flowers and Gifts merged with Fingerhut and Federated Department Stores.

Patent number 7,505,913 on Mar 17, 2009, for affiliate marketing and tracking. Tobin also received Japanese Patent number 4021941 on Oct 5, 2007, and U.S. Tobin applied for a patent on tracking and affiliate marketing on January 22, 1996, and was issued U.S. By 1995 PC Flowers & Gifts had launched a commercial version of the website and had 2,600 affiliate marketing partners on the World Wide Web. In 1994, Tobin launched a beta version of PC Flowers & Gifts on the Internet in cooperation with IBM, who owned half of Prodigy. In 1998, PC Flowers and Gifts developed the business model of paying a commission on sales to the Prodigy Network.

By 1993, PC Flowers & Gifts generated sales in excess of $6 million per year on the Prodigy service. Launched on the Prodigy Network in 1989, PC Flowers & Gifts remained on the service until 1996. Tobin, the founder of PC Flowers & Gifts. The concept of affiliate marketing on the Internet was conceived of, put into practice and patented by William J. The translation of the revenue share principles to mainstream e-commerce happened in November 1994, almost four years after the origination of the World Wide Web. The concept of revenue sharing-paying commission for referred business-predates affiliate marketing and the Internet. 4.3 Affiliate management and program management outsourcing.

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