The Million Dollar Homepage
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The Million Dollar Homepage is a website conceived by Alex Tew, a 21-year-old student from Cricklade, Wiltshire, England to help raise money for his university education. Launched on August 26, 2005, the website is said to have generated a gross income of $1,037,100 USD and has a current Google PageRank of 7. The site's Alexa ranking as of January 31, 2007 is 9,669[1], having peaked at around 127.
The index page of the site consists of a 1000 x 1000 pixel grid (one million pixels), on which he sells image-based links for US $1 per pixel, in minimum ten by ten blocks. A person who buys one or more of these pixelblocks can design a tiny image which will be displayed on them, and also decide a URL which he or she wants them to link to, as well as a slogan displayed when hovering the cursor over the link. The aim of the site was to sell all of the pixels in the image, thus generating one million dollars of income for the creator, which seems to have been accomplished.
On January 1, 2006, the final 1,000 pixels left were put up for auction on eBay. [2]. The auction closed on January 11 with the winning bid of $38,100.00. This brought the final tally to $1,037,100 USD in gross income.
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Origins and developments
Tew wanted to find a way of funding his degree studies, since he was starting a course at the University of Nottingham in a month. He had the idea of selling pixels, and even though he didn't really believe anyone would want to buy them, he decided to go ahead with the plan, knowing he had very little to lose by trying. He planned not to market the site, but to simply allow it to become known by word of mouth. Within three days, he sold his first 20 x 20 pixel block, to an online music site. From then on, with only a press release in terms of self-promotion, he sold several blocks a day. To Tew's surprise, it only took about two weeks before he had enough money to pay his first year at university. By then, a number of well-known blogs and UK newspapers (e.g. The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Sun) had noted his endeavor, and the numbers of orders skyrocketed. A month on from the site's launch, he had made $152,900.
Tew only stayed on his university course for one term and had to pull out due to the massive media attention he was receiving and the time he spent dealing with website related issues and interviews. Whether he will return to his studies remains to be seen as he has now embarked on running a $1 million online lottery on the back of another pixel advertising website.
Copycat sites
The concept quickly spawned hundreds of copycat sites, which were greatly encouraged by the sales of a pixel script and by the fact the Million Dollar Homepage was quickly selling out of its last pixels and generating further publicity. Being first, the Million Dollar Homepage became an essentially self marketing tool as a result of its sheer style and novelty. The copycat sites lacked this novelty and most have failed.
DDoS attack
BBC News has reported [3] that the site was subject to a Distributed Denial-of-service attack, commencing on January 11, 2006. It is claimed that the attackers sent blackmail emails to Tew, demanding payment of a ransom to prevent the site being attacked.
This has now been resolved, with a hardware fix. Mr Tew said in a recent newsletter:
- The Million Dollar Homepage is back online after almost 6 days of downtime due to a malicious attack by hackers who tried to extort $50,000 from me. I'm pleased to say that I did not pay a penny, and worked closely with my hosting company Sitelutions and DDoSprotection.com to stop the attack. I can also report that the FBI are investigating.
Pixelotto
In December 2006 Tew Launched a similar site called pixelotto. Pixels on pixelotto are $2 rather than $1 USD. One month after the last pixel is sold, or in December 2007 (whichever comes first) a winning ad is determined; half of the proceeds will go to one of the contestants clicking that ad, 10% will go to a charity of the winner's choice, and the remaining 40% will go to Tew. Contestants are allowed to click only 10 ads a day.
References
- Boggan, Steve (Nov. 10, 2005). "Million Dollar Boy". The Times, p. L12–L13.
- million-dollar student By Tom Geoghegan, BBC News Magazine.
