During the
early 1990s when the Internet launched in the format that we know today,
it quickly became clear that there were infinite ways to use it. Since
then, numerous ideas have become reality thanks to the world's major
technology companies.
| Every once in a while, the "little
guy" comes up with something which is just so original and
interesting that it generates a major buzz as the latest Internet fad.
Notable fads and some continuing interesting concepts include Save
Karyn & cyber begging, the
track it trend, and am
I hot or not picture ratings. Don't forget the real
ultimate power parodies which started as, well, who knows?!
So it comes
as no surprise that when 21-year-old Alex Tew, a university student in
England needed some money to support himself, the next brilliant
Internet idea was born. Tew's site, milliondollarhomepage.com launched on August
29, 2005. Within weeks, the latest fad had taken off.
|
|
 What is
the Million Dollar Homepage?
The
idea of the site is to sell 1,000,000 pixels at $1 each, thus earning
a million dollars. The word pixel stands for picture element. It is a
tiny dot on your computer monitor or TV screen. Pixels form the basis
of a screen. There are millions of them and they light up in different
colors based on what you are watching. Generally speaking, the more
pixels, the sharper the image on your screen.
What Alex
Tew did was isolated the space taking up a million pixels on a website
and offer to sell each one. Since selling one pixel at a time would be
too tedious and complex from a logistics perspective, it makes sense
that he decided to sell his pixels in blocks of 100 (or $100) minimum.
The more blocks you buy, the larger the space you have on the page
meaning you can put larger banners up.
People
Are Signing Bigtime
There
are two main reasons why the site is so successful. First, the idea is
brilliant. So much so that if you type "brilliant idea" into
Google, the site now appears in the top 10. It's simplicity is uncanny
and many, many people are kicking themselves right now thinking
"wow, why didn't I think of that?!"
Next, as
with many Internet fads, the only thing that makes this really
worthwhile is that there is a lot of hype surrounding the site. As
media and Internet coverage continues to grow, more people are
visiting the site, which makes more businesses want to sign up to try
and cash in on the publicity. Hence, the advertising and marketing
potential is tremendous.
Consider
though, that traffic to a site will be untargeted and who knows how
long the massive traffic will last. Some studies have shown that as
soon as an Internet fad begins to fade from attention, the amount of
traffic easily dies.
Nonetheless,
Alex Tew has received a tremendous amount of media coverage and has
become a celebrity in his own right. He's being offered
"deals" of all types as people try to cash in on his 15
minutes of fame.
Million
Dollar Homepage Parodies
It
didn't take long for everyone and their grandmother to make their own
variation of the Million Dollar Homepage. It's just so simple and
difficult to resist. In fact, within a couple months of the site
taking off, at least one company was offering a million dollar PHP
script that would help webmasters keep track of all the pixels.
There also
million dollar pixel directories which attempt to guide people through
the array of million dollar websites. Some parodies are quite creative
while others are very lame imitations. You can buy ad space from pixel
sites selling it by the pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, euros, and
so on. Other sites have interesting variations such as a scrabble-like
pixel selling strategy. When you see that pixels for Jesus is one of
them, you know the fad is done (yes, that site exists!).
The Next
Big Thing?
As the Million Dollar Homepage comes and goes, new
ideas will continue to spring forth as time goes on. The pure hype of
this site in particular has lead to new ideas coming out such as some
guy who is trying to sell his site as the most expensive web address
in history. Good luck.
BrianX
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