VALUE COMMERCE

ValueCommerce, Japan’s leading affiliate service provider and Skype, the Global Internet Telephony Company™, today announced a partnership to reward website publishers for promoting Skype on their sites. Through ValueCommerce’s affiliate marketing program, affiliate websites will receive commissions for sales of premium Skype services, that are the result of click through traffic from their sites.

Skype’s innovative software allows users to make superior-quality voice calls over the Internet for free. Skype’s pre-paid premium services, SkypeOut, SkypeIn and Voicemail are available in the Skype Store at www.skype.com and allow global connections to traditional fixed and mobile phones for low-cost, destination-based pricing. SkypeOut allows customers to call landline and mobile phones worldwide for the price of a local call, and customers of SkypeIn, in beta testing, are assigned a personal SkypeIn number in their resident country with which to receive inbound calls to the Skype client. Skype also offers Skype Voicemail for users seeking to continually maintain their availability with a voicemail box.

As Skype’s partner, ValueCommerce will act as Skype’s central online sales network; rewarding online communities, website owners, bloggers and Skype fans that promote Skype on their sites with commissions of up to 10%. By simply signing up to the ValueCommerce affiliate program, applying to the Skype campaign and adding Skype functionality and advertisements to their website, affiliates receive commissions on the sales of premium services from every customer who has visited the affiliate’s site in the previous 90 days. ValueCommerce’s existing network of 110,000 affiliate sites will be able to instantly participate in this program from launch.

“We are pleased that Skype has selected ValueCommerce, the largest affiliate marketing network in Japan, as their partner,” said Brian Nelson, President and CEO, ValueCommerce. “Our affiliate network currently serves 330 million ads per day and reaches up to 50% of the Japanese Internet users each month. We expect the Skype affiliate program to generate significant sales and grow very quickly through our broad network of websites.”

Skype is the leading VoIP-category product worldwide, with more than 42 million global users and 1.6 million users in Japan. Skype’s userbase is increasing by approximately 140,000 new registered users each day, and approximately 6,000 new Skype users are joining daily in Japan.

[ ValueCommerce ]
Founded in 1996 as one of the first hosting and domain resellers in Japan, ValueCommerce launched Japan’s first ASP Affiliate Marketing platform and service in 1999. Today, ValueCommerce provides E-commerce and online marketing services in 3 major business divisions: 1) Affiliate Marketing, 2) Directory/Search, and 3) Hosting/Infrastructure. For the affiliate marketing business, ValueCommerce is serving one of the largest affiliate marketing networks in Japan delivering over 330 million advertisements per day and reaches up to 50 % of the Japanese Internet population (Nielsen/NetRatings “Advertisement distribution (BTC)”).

[ Skype Technologies S.A. ]　http://www.skype.com/
Skype, the Global Internet Telephony Company™, allows people everywhere to make free, unlimited, superior quality voice calls via its award-winning innovative peer-to-peer software for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Pocket PC platforms. Skype is available in 22 languages and is the fastest growing voice communications offering worldwide. Since its launch in August 2003, Skype has been downloaded more than 123 million times. Skype Technologies S.A. is headquartered in Luxembourg and is growing its offices in London and Tallinn. Skype Technologies is privately held and backed by top tier international venture capital firms, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Index Ventures, and Mangrove Capital Partners. www.skype.com