Million Dollar Homepage pixel hawker damn or spam? |
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A 21 year old UK student by the name of Alex Tew has already made $28,000 USD in a few weeks from a curious idea to sell one million pixels on his Million Dollar Homepage (pictured above) in 10×10 boxes ($100 USD). His site has attracted enough attention to climb the Alexa Mover’s & Shakers list to #4 behind Apple, NFL.com and Chevrolet.
Attracted enough attention and money to already have PayPal shut him down:
PayPal once again demonstrates their ineptness and total disregard for customer service by blocking all transactions … and freezing their account .
Some diggizens (or is it diggers?) are skeptical, admire or jealous of Alex’s success to date, and some are even going as far to call this an outright scam. The homepage does have a very spammy look to it so far. I wonder how the various search engines will treat this type website long term? That would be my concern from buying any of that pixel real estate. At least Google isn’t too excited about pages that are nothing more than places for advertising.
Speaking of content, Alex does have a blog but there doesn’t seem to be any RSS feed or permalinks. Clearly he wants the main focus to be buying pixels from him and not have any traffice leaks. In a FAQ section he talks about how he plans to use the money after he pays for school to buy socks and give his parents time off. Socks? Yeah, you read that correctly.
Creative idea, but seems just a bit too spammy for me. I’m curious what readers think? It made me go hmm and that’s why it’s here but … well, I’d sure be wearing a large internet condom before clicking on some of those pixels to see what/where they go … I sure didn’t click any!
Update 1/18/2006 8:27am PST: Shortly after selling out all million pixels the ft.com reports that Tew was sent a blackmail email:
Tew was sent a demand for $50,000 by e-mail by a hacker, believed to be Russian. When he refused, the website crashed. The e-mail, which was made available exclusively to the Financial Times, read: “Hello u website is under us atack to stop the DDoS send us 50000$.”Related Posts
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I don’t know. I think the site is really successful, hes almost at $100 000! Sure, it’s lazy..but it’s working. Have you heard of that site where you have to bid on ad space. It’s alot different, but it seems as if it were inspired by this site. Check it out:
www.TheRichestBidder.com
Comment by philly — September 21, 2005 @ 11:43 pm PST
Good scam. I don’t know why he needs a million. The last time I went to uni it only cost about 15000 for a 3 year course!!!!!
Comment by Shaney — September 22, 2005 @ 10:36 am PST
Free pixels here:
http://www.zerodollarhomepage.com
Comment by Eivind — September 23, 2005 @ 9:50 am PST
Eivind - you forgot to leave your terms/conditions. Here they are for others:
So you want pixels?
-The standard size will be one block (10×10 pixels)
-Don’t be afraid to send me an email and ask for more blocks- please explain why and how many you want. I will check your website and decide if you will get it or not!
Terms And Conditions
-The pixels you get will not be yours (Its my website..!). Consider it a loan
-I will decide if you get free pixels on the Zero Dollar Homepage
-The pixels must be used to link your website
-No porn or offensive language links will be allowed
-Animated images cannot be used
-I have the right to remove your link without notice
Comment by TDavid — September 23, 2005 @ 10:08 am PST
Here is another one in Dutch:
http://www.miljoenpixels.nl/
Comment by Content Databases — September 24, 2005 @ 4:39 am PST
I started a site recently which sells pixels, but also awards lucky advertisers. Similar to a lottery drawing. Currently I’m think of a way, where I can reward visitors. Any Ideas? If so email me.
Comment by Powerstar — September 26, 2005 @ 3:28 pm PST
Hmm, email only, Powerstar? What if someone wants to post their ideas on their blog and share them with others too?
Comment by TDavid — September 26, 2005 @ 4:05 pm PST
milliondollarmosaic.com. This is my take on the million dollar homepages. As an artist, I wanted to do something a little different and came up with the Pop Art inspired mosaic, which I want to enlarge for an exhibition so you’d have advertisers logos on a huge pixelated canvas. Links on the mosaic will be permanent as the virtual exhibit will run indefinitely. Traffic will come from my other sites, like wickedmoon.com, which receive thousands of hits a day.
Comment by Jason Brown — September 27, 2005 @ 6:32 pm PST
A German/English one: pixelget.com
Comment by Jason Bligg — September 28, 2005 @ 7:55 am PST
I was afraid that this post might descend into crap like this. Please do not use the comment area to tell us about your competing service. We consider that to be SPAM. Yeah, that might sound harsh and is debateable, but sorry, those are the comment rules.
To prevent this comment thread from further descent into the million pixel clone spam contest, we are removing the URLs of any competing service and just displaying the domain. So please don’t bother putting in your full link in this thread if you are looking to pitch your competing service in this thread.
If readers really want to follow and see your take on the Million Dollar Homepage — but I seriously doubt many will, and if I were them, I’d be worried what they might run into if they click on some of those ads (sorry) — then they can just copy/paste your URL heretofore.
If this activity continues we will close this thread’s comments altogether. Unless specifically requested, the comments are meant for reader’s thoughts and comments on the piece above, not to say: “hey, check out what I’ve done that’s like this …”
Hint: if you want to give us your own take and include more information on your competing service, then use trackback, not the comments area here to write from your own blog. We will likely approve that comment.
Thank you for reading and respecting all Hmm readers.
Comment by TDavid — September 28, 2005 @ 9:37 am PST
Try ebaypixels.com - this one is with a prize (12MP digital camra apparently) and combines only from ebay powersellers.
Good though, only £10 per box…
Comment by Terry — September 28, 2005 @ 3:57 pm PST
Let’s not forget
Comment by Million Dollar Homepage — September 30, 2005 @ 4:08 pm PST
I made a list of all the copycats I can find with their site stats and whether they are making money or not:
http://www.yunasville.com/home/milliondollarhomepage-copycats
And I got even more copycats coming to leave their site addresses in my comments section..
Comment by Yuna — October 2, 2005 @ 2:16 am PST
Only a “Hmmm…” well as an advertiser on milliondollarhomepage (the Blue Cat icon, in the middle of the page, a third of the way down, there’s a dog icon that’s just appeared to our right and down a few lines!)
I can confirm that our unique visitors have increased by over 100% and remain so since we appeared on the site on Thursday the 29th September. We’ve had increased business for sales and bookings - and I reckon before then end of next week I’ll have covered the 400 Dollars It cost me to buy the pixels from MDHP, any further sales, business or bookings past that point will be pure profit. I consider that an excellent return on my investment.
I’ve clicked most of the links on the milliondollarhomepage site, and they’re all safe, No giant internet condom needed!
I think the guy’s a genuis, he’s captured a tremendous amount of peoples imagination….. and the last time I looked he’s taken 240,000 USD!!!! Not bad for a months work - good luck to him!
Comment by Tim, the Boss! — October 2, 2005 @ 9:54 am PST
me too I’m doing it
Comment by Meg Hager — October 2, 2005 @ 5:06 pm PST
Yea, but I’m already a third year student, and trying to make money to build a house that will withstand tsunami and hurricane, and submersion. Architecture is my game lol
Comment by Meg Hager — October 4, 2005 @ 1:34 pm PST
I already did it better: millionxxxpixels.com
MillionXXXpixels - Naughty Advertising at it’s best!
The first fully automated Adult pixel site! Click your pixel, resize and see total in real-time. Click the order button, make payment and your pixel is live!
Comment by MillionX — October 5, 2005 @ 4:56 pm PST
Here is another one: pixelkeyboard.com
Comment by Cookie — October 6, 2005 @ 4:43 am PST
Check it out: pixel-platz.de
A new version…
Comment by Marc — October 6, 2005 @ 7:20 am PST
Tim - thanks for being one of the few that have commented here actually saying something. I’m glad to hear the advertising is working for you and that an internet condom is not needed (although I’m not going to try actually validating your claims).
As for the others …
I suggest everybody who commented above who blatantly pitched their competing service and an inappropriate time and place and not offering much else of substance — and that’s almost everybody above, BTW — read the following post very carefully: http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20050928/2433/
Since me asking nicely went pretty much nowhere, I’m closing comments on this thread to further spamming activity. This is only the second thread in the history of this blog that comments have ever been closed on. Sorry to Hmm readers for the padlock
Comment by TDavid — October 6, 2005 @ 10:27 am PST