bCentral pulls the plug, dumps affiliates into CJ

WHOA!

[rcjordan]

"We are sending this letter to inform you that effective September 6th 2001, we will no longer run the bCentral Revenue Avenue service. As a provider of services for small and medium sized businesses, our main goal is the continual improvement of services to meet the growing needs of business users. To enable an easy transition to a new affiliate marketing provider, we have set up a relationship with Commission Junction, a pay-for-performance advertising network that allows online advertisers to acquire more customers and online publishers to earn the most revenue from their audience." [revenue.bcentral.com]

[msgraph]

Opps :o

I forgot to post this a few weeks ago

[zdnet.com...]

[Drastic]

Though clicktrade hasn't been much of a force for a while, this is big. M$ getting out is surprising. I guess not knowing how to run and promote this service caught up to them.

It is interesting to see them pushing CJ, through their own affiliate links. Must be trying to salvage what they can.

And also interesting from msgraph's article, a M$ spokeswoman was quoted July 24:
"bCentral, which provides online subscription services to help small businesses get online, improve marketing effectiveness, increase sales and provide better customer service, remains a big part of Microsoft's small to midsize business strategy, she said."

Guess they changed strategy very recently.