Pixel Marketing+

Fri 27 January 2012 10:01, Gergana Koeva

The brilliant young mind of Alex Tew, the English student who came up with a simple, but million dollar worth idea has spawned another similar creation…genius idea or failure...Back in 2005 the Cricklade-born (Wiltshire, England) boy was the one who conceived the money-making machine – The Million Dollar Homepage. He brought pixel marketing and online advertising to a whole new level. It was perhaps something so simple that everyone could have thought of, but his entrepreneurial drive pushed Alex to go all the way with this project.

Concept
The concept was to sell a whole webpage consisting of 1000X1000 pixel space at $1 per pixel (depending on your screen’s resolution that will be around half the period at the end of this sentence) in 10 × 10 blocks. Therefore he would always make a $100 apiece. Many of the companies which joined did it just to take even a small bit out of the viral fame this website achieved. And Alex did all of this only because he didn’t want to be stuck paying student loans till the rest of his life.

How did he do it?
Perhaps the reason for Tew’s success lies not only within its simplicity, but also the way he marketed it. The first people who bought pixel shares were his friends and family. Initially the website was promoted just via worth of mouth. After the $ 1,000 mark a press release was sent out to the media. BBC noticed it and the website for technological news The Register covered it in two articles. The ranking of the page was moving fast to the top in different classifications for most visited websites. The numbers of people purchasing the pixels were increasing day by day. Finally the very last 1,000 pixels had to be sold and they were so highly desirable that they were auctioned on eBay. The winning bit of the MillionDollarWeightLoss.com company was $38,100, which added up to Tew’s gross total of $1, 037, 00. Deducting taxes, costs and with a charitable donation to The Prince's Trust, Alex was expecting to have a net income of $650,000-$700,000.

The new Idea
So how can you cash on a spin-off of the Million Dollar Home Page while trying to remain interesting to your potential customers? Alex Tew thought of this just recently by coming up with the almost identical: One Million People coffee-table book. Basically instead of pixels at the small price of $3 per person you buy your photo space to be featured on the website and in the book. This is supposed to become the big image of the digital generation and the closest one to Facebook, which has almost become your virtual identity. For this the website would be linked to the social media, so you can use your already existing images to upload right from your profile. Tew predicts a bright future for his current invention: “I think it’s going to fly. Everyone I’ve spoken to thinks it’s a great idea, and it has the possibility of going viral.” Will the genius rack up another six figures…only time will tell.

-image from Sherlomes.com

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