AEToken, is a blockchain affiliate marketing platform wherein large affiliate networks, work in tandem with software providers and industry stalwarts led by Jason Fernandes
When talent meets confidence, a prodigy is born. Born to artist parents, Jason Fernandes has explored his potential to the fullest and stands as an example for many young minds to follow. Subsequent to finishing his IB diploma, along with an American School diploma in 2001, Jason was chosen for the Stanford Education Program for Gifted Youth and after a genuinely rough begining, he graduated with an unhitched bachelors in Arts degree from the University of Texas. In 1988, Jason released his first program and it wasn’t too long and he was one of the youngest team members at Chip magazine reviewing games and responding to reader queries for their ‘Dr Chip’ column. Zeocities came out as Jason’s first enterprise. A web portal that included its own search engine, free email service and e-store that sold books, music and videos. This was even before Google had reached the online space.
He envisioned and executed several more with every passing day.
His latest venture, AEToken is a blockchain affiliate marketing platform wherein large affiliate networks, affiliate with software providers and industry stalwarts like the Almora group, coin traffic, coin media are partners. FUNL Corp is a blockchain based smartphone notification filtration service born out of Smartklock. The technology behind FUNL focuses on the idea of ‘Taking control of one’s own digital life.
Startups are considered to solve an issue and ease complex procedures for the consumers. It was this ideology that even let Jason into starting up on his own. He was curious to find solutions and worked passionately.
When asked about what inspired him he said, “I’d been in technology for a while, but I had a mentor in the finance industry who had been enormously successful with taking companies public. We’d have long discussions on finance and I remember thinking in a different world I could probably see myself doing that as well. Suddenly Bitcoin, ICOs and Cryptocurrency came along it was the perfect intersection of technology and finance- that really excited me. Also, as a Government major at UT Austin and the democratic ideals of Blockchain as a technology greatly appealed to me.”
It wasn’t always easy for Jason and his initiatives, he remembers the time when he co-founded RecordTV, which was then the world’s first web-based DVR. It was during this time that Singapore’s National Broadcaster, MediaCorp dogged allegations about violating copyright laws. “Mediacorp saw our service as an existential threat to their business and did whatever they could to stop us from functioning. The threats only ceased when RecordTV eventually won a well-publicized $30.5 million lawsuit against MediaCorp. The lawsuit was pivotal and has since regularly been cited as precedent in other copyright cases,” says Jason.
AEToken is a niche product focused on the B2B industry use case. The technology has the potential to disrupt the preset affiliate marketing industry. Advertising costs are always passed on to consumers so inefficiency in payouts between publisher and affiliates lead to higher costs for the masses.
AEToken’s suite of tools and smart contracts are designed to address the specific problems facing the affiliate marketing industry using blockchain and smart contract technology. Jason states how the industry is presently rife with complications and the prior most one among them is the inability of both sides to enforce deals. He mentions how given the current regulatory and civil procedures, attempting to litigate between mostly off-shore corporate structures across multiple jurisdictions is not viable for either publishers or affiliates. With AEToken, now for the first time affiliate deals are secured with instant payments, lower fees and scalability is not an issue.
Apart from being the Founder of ZeoCities and Co-founder of RecordTV where he holds a patent for the world’s first internet-based DVR, he also has several other accolades to his name. Jason was on the founding team of Perceptivel, a company that developed patented Electronic Customer Relationship Management (ECRM) software for 500 clients.
Jason is a Technology Columnist with Indonesia’s Globe Asia magazine. In 2018, he received first place awards at the Malta Blockchain Summit and the Seaside Startup Summit. He’s also the recipient of the Startup@Singapore Award, the first National Technopreneurship competition Award (Singapore), Childnet International Award (UK) and even the ‘Best Business Plan’ award from Sybase at the Global Entrepreneurs Challenge at Stanford University, California. Jason has also been featured in international outlets like the BBC, LA Times, Associated Press, MTV, Channel NewsAsia and national media including India Today, ZeeTV and the Times of India.
Talking about the near future of his enterprise, Jason says, “We have a large and active existing affiliate business that we are in process of putting on the blockchain. Along with the other partners, that business currently brings in revenue of just under $300 million USD annually. We are focused on blockchain development right now but growing our business will eventually entail signing on more partners and growing the demand for our payment solution among publishers and affiliates.” He further adds, “That work has already begun, affiliate networks with a collective pool of 8000+ affiliate have already committed to implementing AEToken as an exclusive payment solution. At the launch of the blockchain product, we expect to have over 25 operators and more than 7 affiliate networks and over 100,000 affiliates putting AEToken into immediate circulation and use”
