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Cash Pours in for Student with $1 Million Web Idea

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the pet-rocks dept.

Quantum Logic writes "Alex Tew, a 21-year-old student from a small town in England, earned a cool million dollars in four months on the Internet. Selling porn? Dealing prescription drugs? Nope. All he sells are pixels. The idea: turn his home page into a billboard made up of a million dots, and sell them for a dollar a dot to anyone who wants to put up their logo. A 10 by 10 dot square, roughly the size of a letter of type, costs $100. He sold a few to his brothers and some friends, and when he had made $1,000, he issued a press release. That was picked up by the news media, spread around the Internet, and soon advertisers for everything from dating sites to casinos to real estate agents to The Times of London were putting up real cash for pixels, with links to their own sites."

16 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. It makes me angry... by Kickboy12 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...cause I didn't think of it first. :(

    It's so simple! *bangs head on table*

    --
    google.slashdot
    1. Re:It makes me angry... by Urusai · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Other bright ideas:

      - Beg for money on your website (with a handy PayPal link)
      - Sell square inches of lunar real estate
      - Sell naming rights to various stars in the galaxy
      - Sell prayers (or better yet, indulgences)
      - Sell "homeopathic" remedies (tap water)
      - Start a "blog" (really a BBS), charge subscriptions for people to entertain themselves
      - Make lots of toast, sell on Ebay as "Virgin Mary and/or Jesus and/or Elvis Toast"
      - Declare yourself an independent country and sell people citizenship
      - Pose as an ousted Nigerian dignitary, promise people a cut of your ill gotten gains, take their money and run (possibly illegal in some jurisdictions)
      - Make a bunch of finger paintings, fake your own death, sell your work as high art
      - Make some lame Flash cartoons, create an Internet meme ("Badger..", "Trogdor...", etc), sell T-shirts
      - Create a blog, sift through a couple of common sites and "aggregate" articles, then post to other people's blogs citing your blog as a news source
      - Threaten to kill some cute animal if people don't buy something from you
      - Stop bathing, acquire some army-surplus accoutrement, stand on street corners looking dazed with a cup in your hand
      - Do something stupid, get humiliated on national TV, do the talk show circuit, become a regular guest on some low-budget game show
      - Get a job. But only if you're desperate.

  2. The Million Dollar homepage by mge · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Million Dollar homepage
    oops forgot the obligatory WOOOT!!! FP

  3. I am selling space in my sig by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    $1 buys you a character. I hope to collect a cool $120 by the time this is all over.

  4. In a totally unreleted news by Vivek+Jishtu · · Score: 5, Funny

    The site got unexpected high hits from slashdot :) which means more sales.

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    I lost my signature... help!
  5. Return on investment by quokkapox · · Score: 5, Informative
    I clicked on multiple ads which looked vaguely appealing, loaded their pages in tabs, skimmed over some of them, and bought absolutely nothing. Net result: wasted bandwidth.

    It'd be an interesting way to get your message out to some more people though, if you weren't trying to sell something.

    This Internet thing is tweaking human communication in interesting ways. I like it.

    --
    it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
  6. Like PT Barnum said... by Stickerboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...there's a sucker born every minute.

    Or in this case, at least 10,000 in 4 months.

    --
    Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
  7. new server by pvt_medic · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well looks like he'll need that money for a new server...

    --
    30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
    Score:5, Troll
  8. Re:web address? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com

  9. Holy old news. by User+956 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is seriously old news. Like, from September old. What next, are we going to get an editorial about this new phenomenon called "blogging"?

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
    1. Re:Holy old news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      an editorial about this new phenomenon called "blogging"?

      Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

    2. Re:Holy old news. by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Just to show how ridiculously old this is, there are people selling friggin scripts that will automate the whole process of creating this kind of page. In fact, there are so many clones out there that there are already directories of them. The kid got lucky, but anybody else hoping to cash in will not be so lucky. You see, this is a one time fee that people pay, and they pay for the traffic that is generated by the press. You only get the press if you're original...ie. the guy who started this. You won't get it if you're just a clone.

      --
      Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
  10. Forethought? by KRYnosemg33 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Call me a cynic, but I wonder... how successful or truthful was Alex's sale of $911k in advertising *before* national press attention (msnbc /. ap etc)?

    Clearly anyone who bought advertising space is cashing in right now, but I wonder if this guy is saying hehas sold $911K so that he can REALLY sell the last 88,200$ in space and actually make money.

    whatever the answer -- creative and cunning...

    It looks like billiondollarhomepage.com was registered 2weeks after milliondollarhomepage.com .... DAMN :/ there goes my 1 BILLLLLLLLION dollars

  11. Re:rest of the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    well I think you're missing the point of what they see in him

    and quite the opposite argument can be made, look at nobel laureates, how many of them did any significant work after the work that won them the prize, some do, but in proportion to the expectations you have?

    coming up with one good idea unfortunately isn't a sure fire predictor of future good ideas

    rather what they see in him I think is that he has what it takes to transform an idea into real world action

    there's a lot more people out there with grandiose "good" ideas than there are people with the skills to take one of them and turn it into real world profit

    griping that there's nothing special about this kid just makes you look petty and jealous

  12. Re:rest of the article by glomph · · Score: 5, Funny
    I own an acre on the moon.

    Yeah! Tell me about it... keep your damn dog from crapping on my front yard!

  13. Goatse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ok, who wants to chip in to get a goatse up on this page?