Back in October 2007 Microsoft bought Jellyfish.com- an affiliate marketing cash-back comparison engine. This brings their current acquisition total to 119 (Farecast Computer reservations were the latest in April ’08). We guessed they bought Jellyfish to harness some of that web 2.0 goodness, rather than the revenues that Jellyfish was bringing in- and we guessed right…
…last month (May 22nd ’08) MS launched Live Search cashback.
The deal is that they make money from advertising revenues, and then pass some of that revenue on to customers, by means of rebates on purchases. So someone shopping via Live Search cashback gets a kickback on every purchase they make- similar to online-coupon, and cashback sites like FatWallet or Ebates, except that the delivery of the reward/cashback is a little slicker.
In practice a shopper uses MS’ cashback search to find products provided from a range of online stores, and those stores pay to be listed. Its up to the shopper to pick the best price- a really simple concept, delivered in a simple way- it looks like it’ll be a winner.
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