LinkExchange was a popular

Internet advertising Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...

cooperative, similar in function to a

webring A webring (or web ring) is a collection of websites linked together in a circular structure, and usually organized around a specific theme, often educational or social. They were popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly among amateur web ...

, originally known as Internet Link Exchange or ILE. It was founded in March 1996 by 23-year-old

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

graduates

Tony Hsieh Anthony Hsieh ( ; December 12, 1973November 27, 2020) was an American internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He retired as the CEO of the online shoe and clothing company Zappos in August 2020 after 21 years. Prior to joining Zappos, Hs ...

(who later went on to invest in and become the CEO of

Zappos Zappos.com is an American online shoe and clothing retailer based in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. The company was founded in 1999 by Nick Swinmurn and launched under the domain name Shoesite.com. In July 2009, Amazon acquired Zappos in an ...

) and Sanjay Madan.

Ali Partovi Ali Partovi ( fa, علی پرتووی; born 1972) is an Iranian-American entrepreneur and angel investor. He is best known as a co-founder of Code.org (which he founded with his twin brother Hadi), iLike, LinkExchange, an early advisor at Dropbox, ...

later joined them as a third partner in August 1996.

Alfred Lin Alfred Lin is an American venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital.Arrington, Michae"Alfred Lin Has The Midas Touch: The Man With $2 Billion In Acquisitions Under His Belt" ''TechCrunch'', July 28, 2009. Lin was the COO, CFO, and Chairman of Zappos. ...

dropped out of his Stanford PhD program to join as CFO. In November 1996, when the company consisted of about 10 people, it moved from Hsieh's and Madan's living room to an office in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. In May 1997, the company received US$3 million in funding from

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...

. In June 1998, LinkExchange acquired MerchantPlanet, an early shopping cart and credit card application. That same month it also acquired Submit It! Inc., developers of Submit It!, ClickTrade, and

ListBot ListBot was a large email list hosting service originally created by Submit It! Inc., a privately held company based in Bedford, Massachusetts. In June 1998, ListBot became part of LinkExchange, which acquired Submit It! Inc. In November 1998, Li ...

. In November 1998, when LinkExchange had 100 employees, it was acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

for US$265 million. LinkExchange stopped taking new applications on November 15, 2006. On June 4, 2007 it stopped serving banners.

References

{{Microsoft Digital marketing companies of the United States Marketing companies established in 1996 Online advertising services and affiliate networks