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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