What are pixels? The display on your screen is made of them, but are they real estate? In 2005, Alex Tew thought they were, and became a millionaire.
https://www.techspot.com/article/2549-million-dollar-homepage/
What Ever Happened to The Million Dollar Homepage?
- Thread starter Amir Shoam
- Start date
Fox God Records
Posts: 110 +97
Two things:
1) Never heard of it until now.
2) /r/place did it better: https://www.reddit.com/r/place/
1) Never heard of it until now.
2) /r/place did it better: https://www.reddit.com/r/place/
Rocky4040
Posts: 198 +258
12 year gap between TMDH and r/place
Besides, the latter was very much a social experiment, rather than an out-and-out money-making scheme.I wanted to buy some space on TMDH back in the day (just the minimum) to promote my old website, but by the time I put the bid in (something like 8 weeks after it started), it had pretty much all gone.
Ah, fond memories.
"On the other hand, the site can be seen as the forefather of the non-fungible tokens (NFT) phenomenon, as the value of the pixels didn't come from what they were, but from how famous they were. "
Nope. That's just simply how all of digital advertising worked from the very first moment on, decades before the inception of the TMDH. Their value depended and still depends on how many people visit and see them. The TMDH changed nothing about that.
The only thing it changed was that all other sites offered some kind of content, service or entertainment to their visitors additional to showing the ads to them, while the TMDH had the ads themselves presented as "content".
In that sense it's akin not to NFTs, but to infomercials - especially that NFTs values are not derived from how many people see them, and their purpose is not to generated revenue through advertising or sales either, but to 1. help part fools of their money, 2. launder illegally gained money.
Nope. That's just simply how all of digital advertising worked from the very first moment on, decades before the inception of the TMDH. Their value depended and still depends on how many people visit and see them. The TMDH changed nothing about that.
The only thing it changed was that all other sites offered some kind of content, service or entertainment to their visitors additional to showing the ads to them, while the TMDH had the ads themselves presented as "content".
In that sense it's akin not to NFTs, but to infomercials - especially that NFTs values are not derived from how many people see them, and their purpose is not to generated revenue through advertising or sales either, but to 1. help part fools of their money, 2. launder illegally gained money.
Hodor
Posts: 765 +512
Thank you for this article. "The Million Dollar Homepage" was one of the best IT ideas of all times. People who say:
- "there are no good or bad ideas, just hard work"
- or "ideas are cheap, 1000 a penny"
...are people who never had a good idea in their life. So they are right, THEIR ideas are bad and cheap. But not all ideas.
This man, Alex Tew, had a brilliant idea. To sell pixels on his page at the price of $1 per pixel. Nobody thought of that before. And it's a shame that most of people never heard about him. He should be a legend. But that's how it is in our world. Morons become legends and real legends aren't known to 99.999% of people.
What's the difference between a good and normal idea? A good idea generates big income for very little work and investment. And it should be legal.
Normal ideas require lots of hard work to earn money. Such ideas are for example: "Let's create a new FPS game, another word processor, another dating app, etc." In other words, let's create another something that already exists.
Bad ideas are, as their name implies, even worse. It's when you try to create something that nobody needs. Or something that everyone needs, but there's no way to make it using our current tech.
So, for example Teleport is a very bad idea. Everyone needs it, but you can't create it. Unless you turn it into a scam, where you cheat investors into paying millions, knowing that you can't deliver the product. But I said "it should be legal".
The Million Dollar Homepage was a fantastic idea because it required very little maintenance, but generated a lot of income. That's what separates excellent ideas from the average ones.
Another great idea was a mobile app called "Talking Tom" made by a small Slovenian company. Well, it was small at that time, but very quickly it became much much bigger and richer. And if you ever installed the first version of the app, it was actually a very rudimentary app. But funny and addictive. Which attracted lots of users. Which generated lots of money.
That's why it was a great idea. A lot of money. Not much work.
- "there are no good or bad ideas, just hard work"
- or "ideas are cheap, 1000 a penny"
...are people who never had a good idea in their life. So they are right, THEIR ideas are bad and cheap. But not all ideas.
This man, Alex Tew, had a brilliant idea. To sell pixels on his page at the price of $1 per pixel. Nobody thought of that before. And it's a shame that most of people never heard about him. He should be a legend. But that's how it is in our world. Morons become legends and real legends aren't known to 99.999% of people.
What's the difference between a good and normal idea? A good idea generates big income for very little work and investment. And it should be legal.
Normal ideas require lots of hard work to earn money. Such ideas are for example: "Let's create a new FPS game, another word processor, another dating app, etc." In other words, let's create another something that already exists.
Bad ideas are, as their name implies, even worse. It's when you try to create something that nobody needs. Or something that everyone needs, but there's no way to make it using our current tech.
So, for example Teleport is a very bad idea. Everyone needs it, but you can't create it. Unless you turn it into a scam, where you cheat investors into paying millions, knowing that you can't deliver the product. But I said "it should be legal".
The Million Dollar Homepage was a fantastic idea because it required very little maintenance, but generated a lot of income. That's what separates excellent ideas from the average ones.
Another great idea was a mobile app called "Talking Tom" made by a small Slovenian company. Well, it was small at that time, but very quickly it became much much bigger and richer. And if you ever installed the first version of the app, it was actually a very rudimentary app. But funny and addictive. Which attracted lots of users. Which generated lots of money.
That's why it was a great idea. A lot of money. Not much work.
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