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 that 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, usually organized around a specific theme, and often educational or social. They were popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly among amateur we ...

, 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, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

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, Hsi ...

(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 (; 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 (service), Dropbox, and ...

later joined them as a third partner in August 1996.

Alfred Lin Alfred Lin (born 1972) is a Taiwanese-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, ...

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, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

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

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...

. In June 1998, LinkExchange acquired MerchantPlanet, an early shopping cart and credit card application. That same month it also acquired

Submit It! Inc. ''Submit'' is a mini-album (and second major release overall) by the British band Pitch Shifter, released on 23 March 1992 by Earache on LP, cassette and CD. Background ''Submit'' was released in a few different configurations. On the trac ...

, developers of Submit It!, ClickTrade, and ListBot. In November 1998, when LinkExchange had 100 employees, it was acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

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