News Blaze: These days, one college student in England is changing the world of real estate one pixel at a time. Sound strange? You bet it is and, in fact, it's just strange enough to work. Alex Tew, a 21 year old college student, is on the way to being a millionaire and it's all thanks to the world wide web and the sale of his virtual real estate.

The concept is surprisingly simple. Alex Tew is selling virtual real estate via the internet. No, it's not a house or land, but it is a cool concept. The Million Dollar Homepage offers a spot of advertising on it's virtual real estate, also known as a website, for a fee of $1.00 per pixel with a 100 pixel minimum. Each purchase of 100 pixels are sold in 10x10 blocks. The goal is to sell one million pixels, which will earn Tew the title of millionaire. After posting his website in August 2005, he's already half way to his goal.

The Million Dollar Homepage is located at http://www.MillionDollarHomepage.com.

College Student Hits Jackpot With Million Dollar Homepage [News Blaze]

Yuelin Toh @ 12:13 PM  |  Advertising  |  Comments (18)  |  Article Link
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There are 18 responses to "Million Dollar Home Page".

We bought 200 pixels on the Million Dollar Homepage just for the Pagerank. We aren't really expecting to receive any traffic from it. We get maybe 4 clicks a day from our ad.

 Posted by: Webmaster @ MP3Board at December 8, 2005 1:33 AM

Pixel advertising probably is not a bad idea...But on the flip side...can anyone actually SEE these little pixel ads?? No. I like what this site is doing... http://www.zillionwebsites.com ...at least here you can actually see what you are clicking on.

 Posted by: John at December 9, 2005 11:25 PM

After seeing the success that milliondollarhomepage.com was having, I started up my own ad space website, however it's based on bytes rather than pixels. Depending on how low you can get the file size, ads can cost over half as much as ads on pixel-based ad space sites. To the best of my knowledge, it’s the first byte-based ad site on the internet. Hopefully, it’s enough of a departure from the “pixel pusher” concept to create decent traffic and create a buzz. Check out www.buckabyte.com for more.

 Posted by: Michael Frans at December 19, 2005 3:08 AM

My hat goes off to Alex Tew, he certainly found a unique idea to sell ad space. I actually took his idea one step further... selling ad space by the BYTE! There are so many "pixel pushers" out there now that I needed to put a spin on the pixel advertising concept. Check out www.buckabyte.com

 Posted by: Michael Frans at December 19, 2005 7:43 PM

You shouldn't buy a 100 pixels there for pagerank. But you should buy for traffic.

We recevied over 1500 visitors since it started.

As of today about 130,000 pixels are left out of a million. No one is complaining - that is a excellent sign.

BTW, we will be offering targeted pixels on various sites - http://targetedpixels.com .

 Posted by: Marcel at December 21, 2005 12:36 PM


Not a million dollar site but a one hundred thousand dollar one. It's made by a woman too..haha

http://www.milliondollartopsites.com/howtobuy.php

 Posted by: Joe Ramirez at January 2, 2006 4:53 PM

News from www.millionairepixels.co.uk

‘a Devon business with global ambition’

Date: Monday 16 January 2006

Australia asks Devon Designer for Help

Devon internet businessman and web designer Alan Wheeler has launched an innovative web advertising service which has already attracted an international company to sign up.

Bovey Tracey based Mr Wheeler has also been asked by Australian charity ‘Hope for Children’ to help them design and set up a similar web-based advertising service.

His web-service www.millionairepixels.co.uk enables businesses to buy a square of pixels, on the web page. Customers click on the coloured pixels and are immediately transported to the advertiser’s web site.

With each block of 100 pixels costing just £60 (60p per unit) it is, believes Mr Wheeler, one of the best value advertising and promotion options for businesses of all sizes and a potentially valuable boost to tourism related services.

And, in the longer term, advertisers could end up bidding for space on what is being described as internet ‘real estate’.

Mr Wheeler, aged 42, said “It’s a quick and easy way for people to find a service or firm and it also gives competitive advantage to the businesses because, with the millions of web sites available, this will draw potential customers to them much more easily.”

“Without a doubt there are people globally willing to pay for quite gimmicky advertising solutions. The internet is a fast moving place with over eight million web pages added on a daily basis. For a website to stand out and generate sales it needs to stand out from the rest,” he added

Last autumn university student Alex Tew set up the Million Dollar site and since then has been overwhelmed by the success of a venture intended to raise enough money to pay for his way through university.

Alan Wheeler’s www.millionairepixels.co.uk is, he says, the next big step in the concept because, in effect, businesses are ‘leasing’ virtual real estate on the web to promote their businesses.

Launched just two weeks ago, www.millionairepixels.co.uk has already won the backing of international business Optis Europe Ltd, an operations management company, which is using the site to promote its business.

With more customers advertising it is, says Mr Wheeler, inevitable that like real property, some of the pixels on his site will become increasingly valuable for their ‘owners’ as more business is generated.

However, the last 1200 pixels, or advertising blocks, will eventually be auctioned off in support of the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, said Mr Wheeler.

Ends…

 Posted by: spider at January 26, 2006 6:40 PM

I think that the pixel ad days are nearing the end. There are so many pixel sites and it is so hard to see what people are advertising. I like what http://www.bannersbringbusiness.com is doing by selling ad space that people can actually see what they are clicking on. People that buy banners also get more bang for their buck because these traditional pixel sites give you a 10 x 10 block for $100 where on this site you can get a 88 x 31 block for the same price. I just like that idea a whole lot better.

 Posted by: Jack at February 1, 2006 11:03 PM

Hey Folks,

Pixel Advertising concept definitely worked for Alex. But that's a history now. Now a days, there are tons of pixel advertising sites out there in market, and most of them are just copy of one another.

Dont you guys think, we need to work on the concept and bring some uniqueness to it?

 Posted by: Pixel 4 Less at May 19, 2006 11:51 PM

What happens when you merge the milliondollarhomepage idea with sex (or is it art)? You get http://www.isellbody.com/

 Posted by: WDD at June 24, 2006 7:56 PM

I believe that Alex's site still generates some indirect value for advertisers at least by improving their visibility in search engines. It has a PageRank of 7 and many still continue to add links to it (by the way, this article has just added one link). So, getting the link from website with such a high PageRank for as low as 1$ it is clearly a reasonable investment. Good luck to all the copycats :) Million Dollar Hosting [www.milliondollarhosting.net]

 Posted by: Michael Hosting at June 29, 2006 5:48 AM

Hello, I recently saw another good "million dollar concept" on the internet. It is "the top of the internet" and you can place ads on this top of the internet. Free ads will be placed on the bottom and the more you pay for your ad the higher you'll get listed on "the top of the internet". Pretty cool huh? Check it out at: http://thetopoftheinternet.com

 Posted by: darrel at February 6, 2007 11:22 PM

Great idea indeed! Although not much advertisers yet, maybe it needs more attention in the media?

 Posted by: Peter Steel at February 21, 2007 10:37 PM

Here's another replica of Alex's site. Lol. http://www.notoworldwar3.com

 Posted by: Lenie at March 4, 2007 10:59 AM

I have just launched my own Million Dollar Homepage. It's not an exact copy of the pixel page, but it's a similar concept. At the time I'm writing this, I've made $30.00 -- The site was launched yesterday.

http://www.mrlen.com

Leonard Wass

 Posted by: Leonard Wass at May 11, 2007 6:59 AM

Below is a cool business idea implemented by a geek.
What is the next big buzz on the net? Do you know?
After pixel advertising, word-tags and others, Badgging.com brings something new that will rock the net for this year at least.

Badgging provides text-based badges with each badge block having a site link.Since the links are text-based the search engines are able to purely index the linked site. This is the next big thing after pixel advertising.

 Posted by: badgging at March 13, 2008 2:57 PM

Wow, what an ingenious way to make money! You have to hand it to the kid. I may check it out myself.

Also, check out this cool new advertising tool that I just stumbled upon! Looks like it could really be great. www.RingOffTheHookNOW.com

Make a great day.

 Posted by: James Rivas at June 10, 2008 11:20 PM

I've come across http://www.pimpmyjob.com
This is a pixel add site for recruiters. The twist to this website is, people who are looking for work can win themselves there annual salary by just clicking on advertised logo's.The concept is quiet simple but I think its a good way to attract website traffic from companys and users as it caters for both parties.

I think if the website owner plays there cards right they might just make the next million. keep track of this website.

check it out for yourselves
http://www.pimpmyjob.com

 Posted by: Imran Patel at September 26, 2009 2:24 PM


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