I'm not normally one for publishing press releases, but i thought some of you might be interested in the latest LinkShare release.

LinkShare To Accelerate M-Commerce in United States

1-800-FLOWERS.COM to be First Partner

NEW YORK – December 3, 2007 – LinkShare, a leading pay-per-action marketing network, announced today the first tool for tracking pay per action (PPA) transactions for mobile commerce, and 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLWS), the world’s largest florist and a leading multi-channel retailer, will debut the technology. Advertisers who join LinkShare’s global network of mobile publishers will, for the first time, be able to reach mobile consumers, track their m-commerce transactions and compensate their publisher partners on a pay-per-action basis.

“1-800-FLOWERS.COM is going live with LinkShare’s m-commerce tracking because we want to reach our customers whenever and wherever they go,” said Vibhav Prasad, senior director of web merchandising at 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. “The mobile customer is often the first to try new services, therefore, LinkShare is helping us enhance our mobile distribution just as we move into the busy holiday season.”

"Our customers live, work and play in a world without boundaries," said Steve Denton, president of LinkShare. “With our expansion into m-commerce, advertisers and publishers can plug LinkShare into their business models very quickly and gain access to a rapidly expanding worldwide market.”

Denton added that mobile commerce is not an entirely new field for LinkShare. At LinkShare Japan, a significant percentage of affiliate purchases are coming from mobile commerce. Also, LinkShare’s parent company, Rakuten, which is based in Tokyo, has had considerable success with mobile commerce.

As handsets capable of web browsing grow in number in the US, consumers will increasingly shop using such devices. Advertisers need a mobile distribution network to reach them. Until now, the advertising industry has focused most of its mobile efforts on tracking impressions or clicks. With LinkShare’s m-commerce tracking technology, advertisers and publishers can now reach and accurately measure the buying behavior of mobile consumers.

“LinkShare Mobile Links makes sense for BensBargains because we created a website specifically for mobile browsers and want to reach the mobile customer with ads,” said Ben Chui, founder and president of BensBargains.net. “As soon as we learned that 1-800-FLOWERS.COM was going live with LinkShare Mobile Links, we registered with their program.”

Mobile commerce is expected to be the next disruptive force in commerce, according to Retail Systems Research. Overall, global m-commerce revenue is expected to soar to more than $55 billion next year from $24 billion in 2006, according to research firm Celent LLC.

For more information on LinkShare's mobile tracking and commerce technology, please contact me. As discussed we've been doing this in Japan for a while and it will be coming to a mobile near you soon...

Greavsie
T: 020 7031 0954
e: agreaves@linkshare.com