Remember the story of Alex Tew and his Million Dollar Homepage? Sure you do. Who doesn’t? The then 21-year old English student who needed some money for his study, and decided to sell pixels for 1 dollar each. He made 1,037,100 dollars. It’s the kind of story that makes us people go: “I wish I came up with that!”. We think about it once in a while, trying to come up with our brilliant idea. In the end we just let it go and go on with our lives, knowing that those kind of ideas might pop up someday…
Alex Tew however, announced in December 2006 he would try to the same thing again: “The pixels are coming back!” Instead of selling each pixel for 1 dollar, he planned to sell each pixel for 2 dollars. The site was called Pixelotto, since he also organized a lottery where the winner who clicked the right advertisement would win 1 million dollars.
TechCrunch’s Natali Del Conte called it ‘just a stupid idea‘. Of course she said that, we probably all thought about it that way. You simply don’t want ONE person to have TWO stupid but brilliant ideas. So, how did mr. Tew do?
Our WebTipr in China Doron Vermaat mailed me last night that he received an e-mail from Alex Tew, saying that Pixelotto had come to an end. The winner, Mr K. Moguche from Kenya, has won ‘just’ 153,000 dollars. And although Moguche will buy a house for his wife and three sons, Pixelotto sounds a bit like a failure.., right?
Well, he didn’t make a million bucks again. But if you consider that he earned 153,000 dollars in a year, he still is a lucky guy. The purchasing power parity of the average Englishman in 2007 was 35,300 dollars, you do the math! Mr. Million Dollar Homepage isn’t making a million dollars per year anymore, but he can still make a fairly good living from ‘just a stupid idea’.
It should be noted, that of the 153,000 made by A Tew, 140,000+ were made BEFORE the site was made public
when the site ACTUALLY became public very few people signed up
and it is stupid, but plenty of stupid people bought into it, as even stupid people have a few dollars to waste.
Fresh idea – http://www.buckcounter.com/
And just to prove that this stupid idea will live on and on, tormenting the fibre of the internet, _I_ give you… (drum roll please)… The Cube of 100.
http://milliondollarcu.be/sneezers/#images
ps. I do tend to agree with what I read as the thrust of your article, that Alex should probably count his lucky stars and move on from the MillionDollarHomepage, but that’s something he’ll have to work out in his own time I guess.
I found another Million Dollar Homepage, But this is a competition and you can win $1,000,000 when you link it.
Have a look http://million-dollar-competition.com/faq.php?ref=9847394#06
What do you think about this new idea? “Own a piece of the Internet for ever”
I’d like to hear from you.
By.
http://www.foreveradv.com/
It is not easy to sell pixel not at all. You need a special marketing trick period.
iPhone Konami via gestures
This is, I’m sure, a very Geeky world first… Entering the Konami Code for a website in the iPhone’s MobileSafari, by using gestures…
http://milliondollarcu.be/iphone.php
Enter the Konami code by swiping the middle of the screen: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, and an Easter Egg is revealed (plus it’s dragable and rotatable)
Hoping this will tweak your interest at some novelty level.
iPhone/Gestures/Secret Konami codes/A ‘Twitter’ easter egg – this has it all.
Cheerio
Robert Black
Background info:
http://MillionDollarCu.be/blog/#20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_code