BEST BRANDED NAMES IN AFFILIATE MARKETING PROGRAMS

Type	Private
Industry	Online Marketing Services
Founded	New York, New York (1996)
Headquarters	New York, New York
Key people	Yaz Iida, (President, CEO)
Products	Affiliate marketing Lead generation Search Marketing (SEM)
Website	LinkShare.com

LinkShare Corporation provides ecommerce businesses with a range of online marketing services including Affiliate Marketing, Lead Generation, andSearch Marketing (SEM).

LinkShare boasts that it has created the largest network of affiliate partners of any program provider—over 10 million partnerships—in addition to becoming the first affiliate network provider to achieve sustained profitability. LinkShare also lays claim to being a pioneer in online affiliate marketing. The LinkShare network is touted by the company as the largest pay for performance affiliate marketing network on the Internet.

LinkShare clients are Fortune 500 and prominent companies doing business online, and include J.C. Penney, 1-800-Flowers.com, American Express, Avon Products and many others.

The LinkShare Corporation (LinkShare) was founded in 1996 by Stephen Messer and Heidi Messer and is headquartered in New York City, with offices in San Francisco, Chicago, Tampa, Tokyo and London, UK.

LinkShare offers a number of services to online merchants. The primary services are:

• LinkShare Affiliate Marketing Network - Affiliate Program Management and Tracking platform which uses LinkShare's patented enterprise grade tracking technology
• LinkShare Lead Advantage, a Lead Generation solution which offers Advertisers looking for customer leads LinkShare technology and services
• LinkShare Search Advantage, which includes Paid Placement, Paid Inclusion and Search Affiliate Management Services
• LinkShare MediaTracker, which provides tracking and reporting beyond affiliate marketing, including email campaigns and display advertising campaigns

LinkShare Corporation is the wholly owned U.S. division of Rakuten, Inc., a top Japanese shopping portal.Rakuten acquired LinkShare in 2005 for $425 Million in cash.

BEST BRANDED NAMES IN JEWELRY COLLECTION

Allurez  is the premier designer and retailer of high quality fine jewelry, with a brand name known to the royals as well as the rich and famous. We are located in the heart of NYC, and are committed to providing you with the largest selection of fine designer jewelry, engagement rings, wedding bands, and certified loose diamonds. Selection At Allurez we carry a full line of rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants, and much more. We also carry men’s jewelry such as cufflinks, wedding bands, pendants, and other high quality items. Our jewelry is available with a large selection of gemstones, colored diamonds, white diamonds, and precious metals. We can also custom make your own design. Service We put our customers first, and pride ourselves with providing superior products, great value, and superb customer service. We go to great lengths to offer each visitor with a fantastic shopping experience, and take personal care of each and every one of our customers. Our easy return policy, free insured shipping, 100% satisfaction guarantee, and unbeatable prices allows our customers to shop with confidence and convenience.  We have even created an education center to help you make a more informed purchase. Our dedicated Jewelry Expert Customer Service Team is here to help you find the perfect piece of jewelry. Quality The quality of the products we provide our customers is extremely important. We only work with trustworthy and reputable diamond and jewelry suppliers that provide us with untreated, conflict-free, and natural diamonds of the highest quality. Lastly, we are a Better Business Bureau (BBB) Accredited Business, and have won many industry recognition awards.

BEST BRANDED NAMES IN COMPUTER SOFTWARES

Type	Wholly owned subsidiary
Industry	Computer software Computer security
Fate	Acquired by Intel
Founded	1987[1]
Founder(s)	John McAfee
Headquarters	2821 Mission College Blvd.[2]Santa Clara, California,United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Michael DeCesare (Co-President) Todd Gebhart (Co-President)
Products	Data Protection, Database Security, Email & Web Security, Endpoint Protection, Mobile Security, Network Security, Risk & Compliance, Security-as-a-Service (Security SaaS), Security Management
Parent	Intel Corporation
Website	www.mcafee.comhome.mcafee.com

McAfee, Inc.  is a computer security company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. It markets software and services to home users, businesses and the public sector. On August 19, 2010, electronics company Intel agreed to purchase McAfee for $7.68 billion (£5 billion). The acquisition closed on February 28, 2011

History

The company was founded in 1989 as McAfee Associates, named for its founder John McAfee. McAfee was incorporated in the state of Delaware in 1992. Network Associates was formed in 1997 as a merger of McAfee Associates and Network General. In 2004, a major restructuring occurred. In the spring, the company sold its Magic Solutions business to Remedy, a subsidiary of BMC Software. In the summer of 2004, the company sold the Sniffer Technologies business to a venture capital backed firm named 'Network General' - the same name as the original owner of Sniffer Technologies. Also, the company changed its name back to McAfee to reflect its focus on security-related technologies.

Among other companies bought and sold by McAfee (formerly known as Network Associates) is Trusted Information Systems, which developed the Firewall Toolkit, which was the free software foundation for the commercial Gauntlet Firewall, which was later sold by McAfee to Secure Computing Corporation. Network Associates, as a result of brief ownership of TIS Labs/NAI Labs/Network Associates Laboratories/McAfee Research, was highly influential in the world of Open Source software, as that organization produced portions of the Linux, FreeBSD, and Darwin operating systems, and developed portions of theBIND name server software and SNMP version 3.

Leading up to the TIS Labs acquisition, McAfee had acquired Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based FSA Corporation, which helped the company diversify its security offerings away from just client-based antivirus software by bringing on board its own network and desktop encryption technologies. The FSA team also oversaw the creation of a number of other technologies that were leading edge at the time, including firewall, file encryption, and public key infrastructure product lines. While those product lines had their own individual successes including PowerBroker (written by Dean Huxley and Dan Freedman and now sold by BeyondTrust), the growth of antivirus ware always outpaced the growth of the other security product lines. It is fair to say that the company remains best known for its antivirus and antispam product lines.

BEST BRANDED NAMES IN ONLINE SHOPPING

  

Industry	Computer hardware Computer software Consumer electronics
Founded	October 22, 2009
Number of locations	World: 16 stores US: 16
Products	Personal Computers, Smartphones,Xbox 360, Video Games, Zune devices and services Computer Mice, Software & 3rd-party software and accessories
Parent	Microsoft Corporation
Website	www.microsoftstore.com

The Microsoft Store is a chain of retail stores and an online shopping site, owned and operated by Microsoft and dealing in computers, computer software and consumer electronics. The stores aim to "improve the PC and Microsoft retail purchase experience for consumers worldwide and help consumers make more informed decisions about their PC and software purchases.

The Microsoft Store offers Signature PCs from third parties such as HP, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, and Sony without demos or trialware (pre-installed free trials of certain third-party software that expire after a limited time). It also offers Windows (most retail versions), Microsoft Office, mobile devices running theWindows Phone 7 OS, Zune devices and services, Xbox 360 consoles, games and services including on-site Xbox diagnostics. The Answers Desk helps to answer questions related to Windows, Office, and other Microsoft products. The stores also offer class sessions as well as individual appointments.

The first two Microsoft Stores opened within a week of the Windows 7 launch, in Scottsdale, Arizona and Mission Viejo, California. Additional stores have since opened in California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas and Washington. At the 2011 PDC, Microsoft announced that they intend to open 75 new stores in the next three years

BEST BRANDED NAMES IN E-BOOKS,CD'S AND MP3'S

Barnes & Noble, Inc.  is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton Booksellers stores in malls until they announced the liquidation of the chain. The company is known for large, upscale retail outlets, many of which contain a café serving Starbucks Coffee, and for competitive discounting of bestsellers. Most stores also sell magazines, newspapers, DVDs, graphic novels, gifts, games, and music. Video games and related items were sold in the company's GameStopretail outlets until October 2004, when the division was spun off into an independent company. Barnes & Noble is also known for selling the Barnes & Noble Nook, as well as various incarnations of its mascot, a teddy bear named "Barnsie".

The company operates 705 stores (as of April 30, 2011) in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia in addition to 636 college bookstores that serve more than 4.6 million students and faculty members across the country

BEST BRANDED PRODUCTS IN THE WORLD

BEST BRANDED NAMES IN MUSIC INDUSTRY

iTunes Store 9.0.2 under Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Opened	April 28, 2003 (as iTunes Music Store)
Pricing model	À la carte, tiered; limited time rentals available for some movies
Platforms	Mac OS X, Windows, Apple TV, and iOS.
Format	Unprotected AAC (.m4a) @ 256 kbit/s (music), protected AAC (.m4p) @ 32 and 64 kbit/s (audiobooks), unprotected MPEG-4 Video (.m4v) (music videos), protected MPEG-4Video (.m4v) (other video)
Restrictions	(Protected) Music — streaming to five computers every 24 hours, unlimited CDs (seven with an unchanged playlist), unlimitediPods and iPhones.
Catalogue	More than 28 million songs worldwide, 1,000,000+ podcasts (USA), 40,000+ music videos (USA), 3,000+ TV shows (USA), 20,000+ audiobooks(USA), 2,500+ movies (USA), 300,000+ App Store Apps
Preview	90 seconds (Music, TV, & Video) / 90 seconds (Audiobooks) / 30+ seconds (Movies)
Streaming	Previews and Podcasts only
Protocol	iTunes Music Store Protocol (itms://)
Availability	See article  Argentina  Australia  Austria  Belgium  Bolivia  Brazil  Bulgaria  Canada  Chile  Colombia  Costa Rica  Cyprus  Czech Republic  Denmark  Germany  Dominican Republic  Ecuador  Spain  Estonia  Finland  France  United Kingdom  Greece  Guatemala  Honduras  Hungary  Ireland  Italy  Japan  Latvia  Lithuania  Luxembourg  Mexico  Malta  Netherlands  Nicaragua  Norway  New Zealand  Panama  Peru  Poland  Portugal  Paraguay  Romania  Slovenia  El Salvador  Switzerland  Slovakia  Sweden  United States  Venezuela
Features	Allowance, "Just For You", Celebrity Playlists, gift certificates and gift cards, iMix, billboard charts, advanced search
Customer support	Web only; See article
Website	itunes.com

The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple Inc. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, it has been the largest music vendor in the United States since April 2008, and the most popular music vendor in the world since February 24, 2010, when it served its 10 billionth song download. It now offers over 28 million songs, videos and apps; by October 4, 2011, the store had sold 16 billion songs. The iTunes Store's revenues in the first quarter of 2011 alone totalled nearly US$1.4 billion.

While most downloaded files initially included restrictions on their use, enforced by FairPlay, Apple's implementation of digital rights management, iTunes later initiated a shift into selling DRM-free music in most countries, marketed as iTunes Plus. On January 6, 2009, Apple announced that DRM had been removed from 80% of the entire music catalog in the U.S. Full iTunes Plus availability was achieved on April 7, 2009 in the U.S., coinciding with the introduction of a three-tiered pricing model; however, television shows, many books, and movies are still FairPlay-protected.