"Great geniuses have the shortest biographies."...Ralph Waldo Emerson
You may have seen news reports on this kid...he's just completed a media tour of the States, and was recently featured in the WSJ.
Alex Tew is a 21 year-old student who grew up in Wiltshire, England and began attending Nottingham University this past September. A few months ago, late at night, he was brainstorming for "an idea that was unique and would hopefully capture people's imagination, but with the whole purpose of making money."
Faced with the prospect of a huge college debt, he was seeking an idea that would pay for his "Uni." After an hour or two of jotting random thoughts to paper, an idea popped out of nowhere.
The idea, like all great business models, is simple. He created a website, "The Million Dollar Homepage". You must view the site to get the full picture. It is pure advertising...there is no real "content". There are a million pixels on the site and each pixel costs $1. All pixels are for sale, with a minimum order size of $100 (a 10x10 box). You can put whatever you want in the box you purchase.
Pure genius. As of today, 11/25/2005, he is close to having sold 700,000 pixels. That should pay for a "Uni"...his books...and other, um, amenities.
The city of Nottingham is noted as having the "best bar scene outside of London". Party on...Alex!
We were so impressed with the Million Dollar Homepage idea that we relaunched out MP3Board.com website with pixel advertising. However, our twist is that we are only accepting advertising for music oriented products and services. With enough advertisers we will have effectively created a useful directory for online music sites. Or right, and we bought a 20x10 pixel ad on MDH too so we'll see how that works out.
Posted by: Webmaster @ MP3Board | November 28, 2005 at 07:35 PM
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 http://www.buckabyte.com
Posted by: Michael Frans | December 21, 2005 at 12:51 PM