The Million Dollar Homepage is a website conceived in 2005 by Alex Tew, a student from Wiltshire, England, to raise money for his university education. The home page consists of a million pixels arranged in a 1000 × 1000 pixel grid; the image-based links on it were sold for $1 per pixel in 10 × 10 blocks.
The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to be displayed on them, a URL to which the images were linked, and a slogan to be displayed when hovering a cursor over the link. The aim of the website was to sell all of the pixels in the image, thus generating a million dollars of income for the creator. The Wall Street Journal has commented that the site inspired other websites that sell pixels.[1][2]
Launched on 26 August 2005, the website became an Internet phenomenon. The Alexa ranking of web traffic peaked at around 127; as of 18 December 2009 (2009 -12-18)[update], it is 35,983.[3] On 1 January 2006, the final 1,000 pixels were put up for auction on eBay. The auction closed on 11 January with a winning bid of $38,100 that brought the final tally to $1,037,100 in gross income.
Alex Tew, a student from Cricklade in Wiltshire, England, conceived The Million Dollar Homepage in August 2005 when he was 21 years old.[5] He was about to begin a three-year Business Management course at the University of Nottingham, and was concerned that he would be left with a student loan that could take years to repay.[5] As a money-raising idea, Tew decided to sell a million pixels on a website for $1 each; purchasers would add their own image, logo or advertisement, and have the option of including a hyperlink to their website. Pixels were sold for US dollars rather than UK pounds; the US has a larger online population than the UK, and Tew believed more people would relate to the concept if the pixels were sold in US currency.[6] In 2005, the pound was strong against the dollar: £1 was worth approximately $1.80,[7] and that cost per pixel may have been too expensive for many potential buyers.[6] Tew’s setup costs were €50, which paid for the registration of the domain name and a basic web-hosting package. The website went live on 26 August 2005.[8]
The homepage featured a Web banner with the site’s name and a pixel counter displaying the number of pixels sold, a navigation bar containing nine small links to the site’s internal web pages, and an empty square grid of 1,000,000 pixels divided into 10,000 100-pixel blocks.[9] Tew promised customers that the site would remain online for five years – that is, until at least 26 August 2010.[10][11]
[edit] Pixel sales
Because individual pixels are too small to be seen easily, Pixels were sold in 100-pixel “blocks” measuring 10 × 10 pixels; the minimum price was thus $100.[12][13] The first sale, three days after the site began operating, was to an online music website operated by a friend of Tew’s. He bought 400 pixels in a 20 × 20 block. After two weeks, Tew’s friends and family members had purchased a total of 4,700 pixels.[5][14] The site was initially marketed only through word of mouth;[2] however, after the site had made $1,000, a press release was sent out that was picked up by the BBC.[5][14] The technology news website The Register featured two articles on The Million Dollar Homepage in September.[15][16] By the end of the month, The Million Dollar Homepage had received $250,000 and was ranked Number 3 on Alexa Internet‘s list of “Movers and Shakers” behind the websites for Britney Spears and Photo District News.[17] On 6 October, Tew reported the site received 65,000 unique visitors; it received 1465 Diggs, becoming one of the most Dugg links that week.[18] Eleven days later, the number had increased to 100,000 unique visitors. On 26 October, two months after the Million Dollar Homepage was launched, more than 500,900 pixels had been sold to 1,400 customers.[19] By New Year’s Eve, Tew reported that the site was receiving hits from 25,000 unique visitors every hour and had an Alexa Rank of 127,[19] and that 999,000 of the 1,000,000 pixels had been sold.[2]
On 1 January 2006, Tew announced that because the demand was so great for the last 1,000 pixels, “the most fair and logical thing” to do was auction them on eBay rather than lose “the integrity and degree of exclusivity intrinsic to the million-pixel concept” by launching a second Million Dollar Homepage.[19] The auction lasted ten days and received 99 legitimate bids. Although bids were received for amounts as high as $160,109.99, many were either retracted by the bidders or cancelled as hoaxes.[20][21] “I actually contacted the people by phone and turns out they weren’t serious, which is fairly frustrating, so I removed those bidders at the last minute”, said Tew.[20] The winning bid was $38,100,[22][23] placed by MillionDollarWeightLoss.com, an online store selling diet-related products.[24] Tew remarked that he had expected the final bid amount to be higher due to the media attention.[20] The Million Dollar Homepage made a gross total of $1,037,100 in five months.[21][25] After costs, taxes and a donation to The Prince’s Trust, a charity for young people, Tew expected his net income to be $650,000–$700,000.[2]
Pixel purchasers included Bonanza Gift Shop, Panda Software, the producers of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, British Schools Karting Championship, Book of Cool, Orange, The Times, Cheapflights.com, Schiffer Publishing, Rhapsody, Tenacious D, GoldenPalace.com, 888.com and other online casinos, Independiente Records, Yahoo!, small privately owned businesses, and companies offering get-rich-quick schemes, online dating services, personal loans, free samples, website designs and holidays.[26]
[edit] Media attention
Following the September press release that first brought attention to the site, The Million Dollar Homepage was featured in articles on BBC Online,[5] The Register,[15] The Daily Telegraph,[27] and PC Pro.[28] Tew also appeared on the national breakfast television programmes Sky News Sunrise and BBC Breakfast to discuss the website.[29][30]
The crucial thing in creating the media interest was the idea itself: it was unique and quirky enough to stand out. I only had to push the idea a bit in the first few days by sending out a press release which essentially acted as a catalyst. This interest coupled with traditional word-of-mouth created a real buzz about the homepage, which in turn created more interest.
By November the website was becoming popular around the world, receiving attention from Financial Times Deutschland in Germany,[31] TVNZ in New Zealand,[32] Terra Networks in Latin America,[33] the China Daily,[34] and especially in the United States where it was covered in Adweek,[35] Florida Today,[36] and Wall Street Journal.[1] Tew hired a US-based publicist to help with the attention from the American media and made a week-long trip to the US, where he was interviewed on ABC News Radio,[37] the Fox News Channel,[38] Attack of the Show!,[39] and local news programmes.[40][41]
The concept was described as “simple and brilliant”,[36] “clever”,[42] “ingenious”,[14] and “a unique platform [for advertising] which is also a bit of fun”.[27] Professor Martin Binks, director of the Nottingham University Institute for Entrepreneurial Innovation, said, “It is brilliant in its simplicity … advertisers have been attracted to it by its novelty … the site has become a phenomenon.”[14] Popular Mechanics said, “There’s no content. No cool graphics, giveaways or steamy Paris Hilton videos for viewers to salivate over. Imagine a TV channel that shows nothing but commercials, a magazine with nothing but ads. That’s The Million Dollar Homepage. An astonishing example of the power of viral marketing“.[43] Don Oldenburg of the Washington Post was one of the few without praise for the site, calling it a “cheap, mind-bogglingly lucrative marketing monstrosity, an advertising badlands of spam, banner ads and pop-ups.”[13] Oldenburg continues, “it looks like a bulletin board on designer steroids, an advertising train wreck you can’t not look at. It’s like getting every pop-up ad you ever got in your life, at once. It’s the Internet equivalent of suddenly feeling like you want to take a shower.”[13]
As the final pixels were being auctioned, Tew was interviewed on Richard & Judy,[44] and profiled in the online BBC News Magazine.[8] The Wall Street Journal wrote about The Million Dollar Homepage and its impact on the Internet community. “Mr. Tew himself has taken on celebrity status in the Internet community … the creative juice … paints an interesting picture of online entrepreneurship”.[2]
Tew dropped out of the business degree the site was set-up to fund after 1 term.[45] He subsequently set up a follow-up site selling pixels for $2 each, with going $1 to Tew and $1 to the eventual winner, who would receive $1 million. He claimed “This idea has longevity” adding “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to win $1m dollars, so I can keep doing it again and again.” The site, Pixelotto, was a relative failure and the eventual prize was only $153,000. In 2008, Tew founded Popjam, an Internet aggregation and social networking business.[46][47]
[edit] DDoS attack
On 7 January 2006, three days before the auction of the final 1,000 pixels was due to end, Tew received an e-mail from an organisation called The Dark Group, and was told The Million Dollar Homepage would become the victim of a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) if a ransom of $5,000 was not paid by 10 January.[48][49] Believing the threat to be a hoax, he ignored it, but a week later received a second e-mail threat: “Hello u website is under us atack to stop the DDoS send us 50000$.”[48] Again, he ignored the threat, and the website was flooded with extra traffic and e-mails, causing it to crash. “I haven’t replied to any of them as I don’t want to give them the satisfaction and I certainly don’t intend to pay them any money. What is happening to my website is like terrorism. If you pay them, new attacks will start,” Tew said.[50]
The website was inaccessible to visitors for a week until the host server upgraded the security system, and filtered traffic through anti-DDoS software.[49][50] Wiltshire Constabulary‘s Hi-Tech Crime Unit and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were called to investigate the extortion and attack; they believed it originated in Russia.[50][51]
[edit] Similar websites
Many other sites sell advertising by pixels.[2][13] Tew said of the sites, “[they] popped up almost immediately; now there are hundreds of Web sites selling pixels. The copycats are all competing with each other.”[1] “They have very little ads, therefore I guess it’s not going too well for them. The idea only works once and relies on novelty. Any copy-cat sites will only have pure comedy value, whereas mine possibly has a bit of comedy plus. So I say good luck to the imitators.”[52]
Would you like to a million dollars in 12 months? Can it be done? Absolutely. Others have done it before you. And if you make it your goal right now and vow to adhere to it, you can have a million dollars in your pocket one year from today. Can it be done during an economic downturn? Absolutely yes. It doesn’t matter whether the economy is booming or busting
So how do you make a million dollars in 12 months?
You will need a plan. You will need a road map.
You need to understand the sheer magnitude of how much money one million dollars really is and what is the effort required to acquire that much money. To earn that amount in the next twelve months, you would need to consistently earn $83,333.33 every month. That is more money than the vast majority of people in the world make in one year. You would need to rake in that much in just one month!
Or, to put it into further perspective, you would need to consistently earn $19,230.77 every week for the next 52 weeks. Again, this is more money than most families make in one month!
And to really hit the matter home, just realize that in order to make one million dollars in the next 12 months, you would need to earn a net profit of $2,739.73 in the next 24 hours after you read this, and every single day for the next three hundred sixty five days!
Once you put the numbers into perspective, the next step is to develop an action plan with which to reach that goal. The good news is that it does not take money to make money. You can make a fortune on the Internet with little more than a PC with Internet access, decent typing skills, and fairly decent written communications skills.
May Happiness Itself would be better than millions
Many media sources claim that 2008 is a year of recession. Recession is a good thing because it wakes people up from living in their comfort zones. There are only 2 things that someone can do when they suspect that the country is in recession:
1. Stop spending your money & save it.
2. Look for a way to make more income.
Most people may choose the first choice. If you are here reading this article right now then you must have taken the second choice. Give yourself a hand because you deserve it. Why should anyone settle for less than they are worth?
Here are a few typical ways that most people “try” to make a million dollars:
1. Lottery
2. Gambling
3. Inheritance
4. Marriage
5. Mutual Funds
Lottery:
You will have much better chances to get into a train wreck, auto wreck or plane wreck than winning the lottery. The odds are against you big time.
Gambling:
Maybe you can learn the art of gambling but that may take a life time. Unfortunately most people do not have enough time to quit their jobs & learn how to become a professional gambler so this may not be your best option. Most of the casinos are set up for you to lose. They are in business to make money & will do everything in their power to make your money without losing theirs. The average Joe doesn’t stand a chance in gambling.
Inheritance:
How many rich uncles do you know that love you & are just about ready to keel over?
Marriage:
This might be possible but it’s still a lot of work. You are better off making it on your own. How good will you feel about marrying for money?
Mutual Funds:
Do you know who tells most people to invest in mutual funds? The banks are the ones who tell you to do this because it is safe. The thing that they fail to tell you is that nothing is safe. Anyone who made a million before most likely didn’t make it safely. They took risks that most people wouldn’t do. You are better off with the casinos than listening to the bank. The casinos will take your money while you are visiting them. The banks want to take your money for the rest of your life. That’s how they convince people to take on mortgages for 25 or 30 years.
Okay so the methods above aren’t the best ways to make a million dollars. I only said that’s how most people try to make a million dollars. Most people are not rich.
Here are a few methods that the wealthy use to make millions:
1. Mind Set
2. Desire
3. Belief
4. Goals
5. Working Smarter
Mind Set:
The only thing that makes a millionaire a millionaire is their mind set. Rich people do think & act differently than poor people. You will have to expand your mind with books, seminars & any other form of wealth building tools that can assist you to thinking like a millionaire. Rich people don’t let problems stop them from achieving anything. They look at problems as something that needs a solution. Most people who are trying to achieve anything out of the ordinary will quit at the first road block or hurdle.
Desire:
Millionaires have a lot of desire. If you don’t have enough desire to make a million then you won’t. In order to become wealthy you will have to take the road less travelled. You will have to make some sacrifices that most people wouldn’t make. The only thing that can keep you going is your drive or desire. Desire is King.
Belief:
Anyone who made a million dollars before you knew that they were going to do it. They didn’t know exactly how but they just knew that they would. If you do not believe that you are somehow capable of achieving a million dollars then you won’t. The only way that you can achieve something great without total belief is if your desire is powerful enough. Most people that have achieved anything great had a desire underneath their financial goal. They wanted some kind of change really bad & the only way to make that change was with a lot of money. If you don’t have enough belief right now but your desire is strong enough then it will keep guiding you until you start believing in your goals or dreams.
Goals:
You will need an income goal & I will guess that yours is $1,000,000 since you are reading this article. If it isn’t then come up with a realistic figure & go from there. If you are only making $60,000 per year then it may be easier for your mind to understand $100K instead of $1 Million. When you reach it then you can increase it. Keep increasing it until you reach your full goal a million dollars.
You will also need a time goal. When do you plan to make this income? It doesn’t matter if you don’t know exactly how you will reach it right now. Goals are the foundation of your desire. Find a realistic income goal & write it down. Find a date & write it down. Everything else will start to fall into place. Now you are starting to have a plan.
Working Smarter:
The fastest way to a million dollars is to learn how to work smarter instead of harder. Working harder will only make you a little more money. The best way to work smarter is to have your money working hard for you.
Find a Passive or Income Source like: Real estate rental property, limited partnership businesses, stocks & bonds or the home based business industry.
Passive income means an income source that you find that will make you extra income without your extra efforts. It would be best for you to stick with your primary income source while you invest a little money into a passive income source.
Most people would now claim that they don’t have any extra money to get started into anything right now. If you really want to change your situation then you must learn to be creative & find a way to come up with extra funds to invest. If you don’t do this then you may be stuck in your financial situation for a very long time. If you want to get out of mediocrity then you will have to think like the rich do. I am not telling you to take your mortgage or food money to do this.
Most successful businessmen rarely ever use their own money to start any venture. They use other people’s money like the banks or credit unions even if they have the funds sitting in their bank accounts.
Are you using Four Square , it is the next big thing
People would usually ask themselves “I’m still not making enough money from this job and I have to look or aim for a higher position in my company or with another company that can give me a higher salary”. This thought that the higher the salaries are, the closer it is to becoming millionaires. But sometimes, earning a higher salary doesn’t always result in making us millionaires. So what does it take to make a person earn his first million? Does it really lie on how much our paychecks say? Does it really lie on the number of credentials we have in our resume?
If we’ll observe famous millionaires, you would notice that it’s not always based on paychecks, careers, or even the higher studies that they took that put them at the millionaires’ club.
While having these personal credentials as a given can provide you an advantage or an edge in the millionaire game, there will always be the bottleneck that will separate a person of wealth from a person still finding his way to wealth. At the end of day, a person will learn to find out that it’s not in the genes, the school where he attended college or even the company he has worked with for the past 10 years. So what’s the secret after all?
The secret to making millions lies not in what credentials the person has right now but on how he uses his credentials in inflating his bank account. How to get there will depend on his spending habits, savings, and investing strategies.
On spending habits, people usually think that the higher they earn, the higher their standard of living should be. As one may pass by a famous luxury brand watch store, one may have this thought “I just got promoted last week and I think I should reward myself with this watch that was previously beyond my wallet’s reach”. It maybe best to think twice first before buying that watch. One may find that he actually has 3 watches right now with the latest one bought just 6 months ago so what’s the sudden rush of buying that watch in that store that’s worth twice the current retail value of all his 3 watches combined? Maybe it can wait for 1 more year. In spending habits, holding on to the wallet and checking if it’s really necessary to buy another one is something that should be part of the checklist of things to think about before buying. Long-term millionaires know when is the right time to pull a dollar out of their wallet.
On savings habit, one may ask “Are my savings working as hard as I am?”. It maybe best to think twice if you’ve kept your savings in the right places at the right time. Knowing which savings vehicle can give the best rate of return at the least risk is a key item. Long-term millionaires usually know how it is to save and how much of their personal income they should save. This should go along well with the spending habits. Technically, as a person increases their capacity to generate more income by getting promoted or landing at a better job with a higher pay, spending habits should at least be regulated and savings to be placed for investments should benefit the most.
On investing strategies, now that one has saved up enough money from all the years that he’s worked so hard for, its now time for him to put them in investment vehicles that will both protect his hard earned money and at the same time provide the highest rate of return possible. In choosing which investments he could place his savings, the keyword to keep in mind is diversification. Diversification is having a variety of investment instruments with different yields with a healthy percentage mix that will accommodate his hard earned savings. The places where to invest should have different rates of return and diverting how much of the savings will go in that investment should be studied carefully by considering both risk and rate of return of that investment. The higher the rate of possible return usually packages itself with a higher risk. Long-term millionaires usually know how much of their funds they should put in real estate, publicly listed stocks or mutual funds and other assets that are available in the market today that can accommodate their funds.
There are a lot of factors to consider in building wealth. Just like the today’s millionaires, there are different challenges they faced to get to where they are right now. No wealth building strategy is perfect. There may be incorrect decisions but with careful planning, there will also be successful ones. The secret lies on finding a good healthy mix of spending habits, savings and investment strategies. People who’ve been there know that the x-factor in getting there doesn’t lie on how much money they had before they started building their wealth. They know it didn’t depend solely on their college degrees also. These 3 significant factors along with whatever credentials a person has gained from his accumulated experiences in his career will surely help however in finding him his way to wealth building success.
Create a video blog…instantly.
Many have seen it done before in 30 days, 7 days and some even 2 hours! But the real secret which I feel how they did it is because they understood numbers!
In my niche of selling digital or physical products, selling online is all about numbers. The more people who see your product the higher the chance you can sell your products more. So my own goal at first was to make a Million Dollar in 2010.
After sitting down and looking at what others were doing I am very sure I can reach there too by 2008. I have just reached the 55,000 mark in months and I know it is truly possible and here is how I am going to do it.
Action Plan
- Create a digital product (done)
- Position Yourself as an expert in a niche (done)
- Build a list of 100,000 (in progress)
Many people say that the money is in the list, it is really TRUTH and here are some examples how people can make a Million dollars really FAST!
Example of a Ebook selling at US$47.00
Sold to a list of 100,000 with only 1% conversion that’s 1,000 customers
1,000 x $47 = $47,000
Example of a Home Study Course at US$497.00
Sold to a list of 100,000 with only 1% conversion that’s 1,000 customers
1,000 x $497 = $497,000 (That’s Half A Million)
Do you get the picture? Building a list is important but numbers do not really count unless they are your responsive customers in your list. I saw many people who are online are NOT building a list! They are just showing stuff and not doing anything about it.
And what is scarier because it’s online and normally online e-books and programs have affiliate programs, you can even earn more from building an army of people promoting your product for you.
Example of a list of 1,000 customers which only about 100 people sign up as an affiliate.
One Affiliate has maybe about 100 emails
100 Affiliates = 100 x 100 = 10,000 More Customers!
So what you seen here is what I call the Internet Marketing Trade Secret which I think there isn’t any blogger or Internet Marketer crazy enough to show you this but that’s how Internet Business makes money. It’s the list!
The best way I found building a list is by using blogs! Why Blogs? It’s simple and it has a personal touch behind the website and you can build list by giving free gifts on your blog easily! A highly recommended resource which I have created called Atomic Blogging was created and designs solely to help other build a list using blogs by teaching you how to drive massive traffic to your blogs.
Plan and take action today and make your first million soon!
Create a video blog…instantly.
