Vesdia Corporation recently announced that DoubleClick’s Performics online affiliate network has invited Vesdia into its ranks of VIP publishers. VIP, or Very-Important-Publisher, is a positive recognition for Vesdia’s success in driving affiliate sales for Performics and its retail advertisers. Vesdia, as many of you know, recently sold its flag-ship school fundraising program, SchoolPop, to Linkshare for an undisclosed amount of money. Vesdia is moving its focus away from costly direct consumer marketing and more towards building online loyalty / rewards malls for large financial institutions (they currently run the program for Citibank) and other large affinity organizations. Their decision to be a technology provider rather than consumer marketer is smart. I think that this new strategy will pay off in spades, especially since they have been invited inside the velvet ropes of the online affiliate networks and are receiving royal treatment (i.e. higher commissions) from merchant advertisers.