Million Dollar Sites is a website created 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 lattice; image-based links on it sell for $ 1 per pixel in the 10 ÃÆ'â € "10 block. Buyers from these pixel blocks provide small images to display on them, a URL where the images are linked, and a slogan to be displayed when hovering over the link. The purpose of the website is to sell all the pixels in the image, thus earning a million dollars of income for the creator. The Wall Street Journal commented that the site inspired another website that sells pixels.
Launched on August 26, 2005, the website became an Internet phenomenon. Alexa's ranking of web traffic reaches about 127; as of May 9, 2009, it is 40,044. On January 1, 2006, the last 1,000 pixels are set up for auction on eBay. The auction closes on January 11 with a winning bid of $ 38,100 bringing the final count to $ 1,037,100 in bulk
During the January 2006 auction, the website was subjected to denial of service attacks (DDoS) and ransom requests, which caused them inaccessible to visitors for a week while the security system was upgraded. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Wiltshire Constabulary investigated attacks and extortion attempts.
As of July 2017, about 37% of these sitelinks suffered from link decay.
Video The Million Dollar Homepage
Development
Alex Tew, a student from Cricklade in Wiltshire, England, compiled the Million Dollar Site in August 2005 when he was 21 years old. He will start a three-year Business Management course at Nottingham University, and is worried that he will be left with a student loan that can take years to repay. As a money-raising idea, Tew decided to sell a million pixels on the website for $ 1 per book; buyers will add their own image, logo or ad, and have the option to include a link to their website. Pixels sell for US dollars and not British pounds; The US has an online population larger than the UK, and Tew believes more people will relate to the concept if pixels are sold in US currency. In 2005, the strong pound against the dollar: Ã, Â £ 1 was worth about $ 1.80, and the cost per pixel was probably too expensive for many potential buyers. Tew setup fee is EUR50, which pays domain name registration and basic web-hosting packages. Website aired on August 26, 2005.
The homepage displays Web banners with site names and pixel counters that display the number of pixels sold, a navigation bar containing nine small links to the site's internal webpage, and an empty rectangle box of 1,000,000 pixels divided into 10,000 100-pixels. Tew promised customers that the site will stay online for at least five years - until at least August 26, 2010.
Maps The Million Dollar Homepage
Pixel sales
Because individual pixels are too small to be seen easily, Pixels are sold in 100-pixel "blocks" of the size <10 × 10 pixels; the minimum price is $ 100. The first sale, three days after the site starts operating, is an online music website operated by a Tew's friend. He buys 400 pixels in the 20 ÃÆ'â € "20 block. After two weeks, friends and family members of Tew have purchased a total of 4,700 pixels. The site was originally marketed only by word of mouth; However, once the site generates $ 1,000, a press release is sent out taken by the BBC. The Register's tech news site featured two articles on the Million Dollar Website in September. At the end of the month, the Million Dollar Website has earned $ 250,000 and ranked No. 3 on Alexa Internet's "Movers and Shaker" list behind the website for Britney Spears and Photo District News . On October 6, Tew reported the site received 65,000 unique visitors; it received 1465 Diggs, becoming one of the most Dugg links in that week. Eleven days later, that number increased to 100,000 unique visitors. On October 26, two months after the Million Dollar Website was launched, more than 500,900 pixels have been sold to 1,400 subscribers. On New Year's Eve, Tew reports that the site received a hit of 25,000 unique visitors every hour and has an Alexa Rank of 127, and that 999,000 of 1,000,000 pixels have been sold.
On January 1, 2006, Tew announced that because of the huge demand for the last 1,000 pixels, "the most just and logical thing" was to auction them on eBay rather than losing "integrity and intrinsic exclusivity to millions of pixel concepts" by launching the Million Site Dollar second. The auction takes ten days and receives 99 legitimate offers. Although the offer is accepted for an amount as high as $ 160,109.99, many are withdrawn by the bidder or canceled as hoaxes. "I actually contacted people over the phone and it turned out they were not serious, which was quite frustrating, so I got rid of the bidder at the last minute", Tew said. The winning bid is $ 38,100, placed by MillionDollarWeightLoss.com, an online store that sells diet related products. Tew said he expects the latest bid amount to be higher due to media attention. The Million Dollar website made a gross total of $ 1,037,100 in five months. After fees, taxes and donations to The Prince's Trust, a charity for young people, Tew expects his net income to be $ 650,000- $ 700,000.
Pixel Purchasers include Bonanza Gift Shops, Panda Software, Wal-Mart Manufacturers: Low Cost High Cost , Karting Championships UK School, Book of Cool, Orange, The Times , Cheapflights.com, Schiffer Publishing, Rhapsody, Tenacious D, GoldenPalace.com, 888.com and other online casinos, Independiente Records, Yahoo !, privately owned small businesses, and companies offering fast-paced schemes, online dating services, personal loans, free samples, website design, and holidays.
Media attention
After the first September press release drew attention to the site, the Million Dollar Website is featured in articles on BBC Online, The Register, The Daily Telegraph and PC Pro. Tew also appeared on the national breakfast program Sky News Sunrise and BBC Breakfast to discuss the website.
In November, the website became popular worldwide, receiving attention from Financial Times Deutschland in Germany, TVNZ in New Zealand, Terra Networks in Latin America, China Daily , and especially in the United States where it is covered by Adweek, Florida Today and Wall Street Journal. Tew hired a US-based publisher to help the attention of American media and travel a week to the US, where he was interviewed on ABC News Radio, Fox News Channel, Performing Attack! , and local news programs.
This concept is described as "simple and brilliant", "clever", "clever", and "a fun platform [for advertising] that is also a bit of fun". Professor Martin Binks, director of the University Institute of Nottingham for Entrepreneurial Innovation, said, "It's brilliant in its simplicity... the advertisers are attracted to it by the novelty... this site has become a phenomenon." Popular Mechanics says, "No content, no cool graphics, gift or video of Paris Hilton that's steamy for viewers to salivate.Imagine a TV channel that shows nothing but ads, a magazine with anything but an advertisement.That's The Million Dollar Homepage.A remarkable example of the viral marketing power. " Don Oldenburg of the Washington Post is one of the few people who do not praise the site, calling it "cheap, confusing, and highly profitable marketing monstrosity, spam advertising badlands, banner ads and pop-ups. "Oldenburg continued," this looks like a bulletin board on a designer's steroid, a wreck of an advertising railway you can not see. "No. It's like getting every pop-up ad you've ever had in your life, The internet suddenly feels like you want to take a bath. "
When the last pixel is being auctioned, Tew is interviewed at Richard & amp; Judy , and profiled on BBC News Online. The Wall Street Journal writes of The Million Dollar Homepage and its impact on the internet community. "Mr. Tew himself has taken celebrity status in the internet community... creative juices... painted an interesting picture of online entrepreneurship".
Tew dropped out of the business title the site was founded to fund after one term. In 2008, Tew founded Popjam, an Internet aggregation and social networking business.
In 2016 Tew works as an entrepreneur in San Francisco.
DDoS Attack
On January 7, 2006, three days before the final 1,000 pixels auction ended, Tew received an e-mail from an organization called "The Dark Group", and was told The Million Dollar Homepage would be a victim of the distribution of denial-of-service attacks DDoS) if a $ 5,000 ransom is not paid before 10 January. Believing that the threat was a lie, he ignored it, but a week later received a second email threat: "Hello website is under us to stop DDoS from sending $ 50,000." Again, he ignored the threat, and the website was flooded with extra traffic and email, causing it to jam. "I have not answered any of them because I do not want to give them satisfaction and I definitely do not intend to pay them money.What happens on my website like terrorism.If you pay them, then the attack will start," Tew said.
The website is inaccessible to visitors for a week until the host server improves the security system, and the traffic is filtered through anti-DDoS software. The Hi-Tech Crimes Unit of Wiltshire Constabulary and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are summoned to investigate extortion and assault; they believe it comes from Russia.
Survive
A study by the University of Harvard in 2017 found that the surviving pages show a considerable degree of link decay. Of the original 2,816 links, 547 (342,000 pixels, sold for $ 342,000) are dead, and 489 (145,000 pixels, sold for $ 145,000) are diverted to a different domain. The report also noted, from the remaining links, that "the majority do not seem to reflect their original goals".
In August 2015 only the main page is available, with all sub pages returning a status code that is not found.
Similar websites
Many other sites sell ads by pixel. Tew said about the sites, "they are coming soon, now there are hundreds of websites that sell pixels, and imitators are competing against each other." "... they have very little advertising, therefore I do not think it's going to work too well for them This idea works only once and depends on something new... every copy-paint site will only have pure comedy value, whereas I might have a little comedy PLUS some actual advertising fund withdrawals... so I wish good luck to the imitators! "Others have tried to get a complete Bitcoin with similar websites.
See also
- Financing the crowd
- Place (Reddit)
References
External links
- Million Dollar Website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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