LinkShare Teams with ShopNBC and Tumri to Introduce Flex Links, Tracking for Video and Rich Media

NEW YORK, Dec. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- LinkShare, a leading pay-per-action marketing network, announced the debut of Flex Links and its first customer testing the technology, ShopNBC, a multimedia retailer and one of the nation's leading home shopping channels.

Flex Links is a new kind of embedded link technology that allows advertisers and publishers to add a new level of tracking to the Web's most popular advertising content.

"ShopNBC, with its national reach and interactive multimedia platform, was instrumental in validating Flex Links," said Steve Denton, President of LinkShare. "By distributing their brand message and product merchandising with video, widgets and other content embedded with Flex Links, ShopNBC will be able to reach consumers in entirely new ways."

"ShopNBC is excited to partner with LinkShare in pioneering the use of Flex Links to enable us to syndicate our product merchandising through new and unique interactive means with our Affiliate partners," said Geoff Smith, Vice President of ShopNBC.com. "Flex Links will enable us to syndicate our breadth of live and archived video sales presentations in a simple and easy to implement means, providing our Affiliates with an outstanding new sales tool."

With Flex Links, LinkShare's pay-per-action tracking can be embedded in an advertiser's content and automatically converted to a tracking link by publishers who post that content. Flex Links allows advertisers and publishers to work together to boost commissions, repurpose content, and enrich the Web's newest platforms, from video to widgets.

"LinkShare Flex Links provides Tumri with a great way to deliver one-to- one marketing with targeted, offer-driven ads," said David Kim, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Tumri. "We are always looking for ways to help our advertisers reach all micro-segments of their audiences with our AdPods, and LinkShare makes that possible."

About ValueVision

Founded in 1990, ValueVision Media, Inc. is an integrated direct marketing company that sells general merchandise directly to consumers through television, the Internet, and direct mail. It operates ShopNBC, one of the top three television shopping networks in the United States. For more information, please visit http://www.ValueVisionMedia.com , http://www.ShopNBC.com , or http://www.ShopNBC.TV .

About Tumri

Tumri is the world's first provider of integrated merchandising and advertising solution. Based in Mountain View, CA, Tumri's patent-pending offer intelligence technology gives advertisers and agencies the ability to dynamically create ads that combine brand with products and listings in a single interactive ad widget called the AdPod. With its diverse targeting and hypothesis testing capabilities, Tumri provides advertisers and agencies an effective means of placing their brands with products and listings in the right context, in front of the right audience at the right time. To learn more about Tumri visit http://www.tumri.com/ .

About LinkShare Corporation

LinkShare Corporation provides e-commerce businesses with a vast, high quality pay-per-action marketing network, along with expert consultative services and patented technology. LinkShare's cost-efficient pay per action (PPA) affiliate, search and lead generation campaigns acquire new customers, increase revenue and drive results. LinkShare clients are Fortune 500 and prominent companies doing business online, including J.C. Penney, 1-800-Flowers.com, American Express and Avon Products. LinkShare was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in New York City, with offices in San Francisco, Chicago, London and Tokyo.

About Rakuten

LinkShare is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rakuten, Inc. Headquartered in Tokyo, Rakuten is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive Internet service companies, providing leading services in e-commerce, portal & media, travel, financial services, and professional sports. Rakuten focuses on new business development and increasing its scope in order to improve and diversify service offerings. Rakuten is a publicly traded company in Japan (JASDAQ: 4755).