I wish I'd thought of this...

October 1, 2005 3:58 PM

The Million Dollar Homepage.Sure, you could buy gigabytes of online storage for a year with $100, but wouldn't you much rather have 10x10 pixels here? Is it stupid? Yes, but havn't you always wanted to make hundreds of thousands of dolars without doing anything?
posted by delmoi (73 comments total)

Why pay five times more?
Pretty funny.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:05 PM on October 1, 2005

I just want 1 pixel.
posted by srboisvert at 4:05 PM on October 1, 2005

Part of me thinks this is pretty silly, but part of me admires the project...
posted by edgeways at 4:13 PM on October 1, 2005

Well I saw this posted somewhere when the site was only a few days/weeks old and there were 3 adverts shown. I'd forgotten about it until now, and I'm really amazed that they are getting so many adverts. Jammy git.
posted by ajbattrick at 4:16 PM on October 1, 2005

I am completely unsurprised to find that Golden Palace Casino has purchased space on The Million Dollar Homepage.
posted by nmiell at 4:17 PM on October 1, 2005

The guy who went to the trouble of "I'M RICH YOUR NOT" needs to be slapped.
posted by thanotopsis at 4:17 PM on October 1, 2005

I'm jelous. I have stupid ideas all the time and I never make any money from them.
posted by I Foody at 4:17 PM on October 1, 2005

I love that this guy has made $240,000 so far on this. And I absolutely love the fact that 20 cent pixels is directly advertising on this guy's site. Anyone who mocks this should come up with their own idea to turn a home made web project into a quarter of a million dollars.
posted by jonson at 4:19 PM on October 1, 2005

I love how people honestly think this guy has made $240,000 on this so far.
posted by bhance at 4:24 PM on October 1, 2005

Reminds me of Tokyo.
posted by fungible at 4:26 PM on October 1, 2005

I love how people honestly think this guy has made $240,000 on this so far.

Less than 1/4 of this looks like it's populated with anything recognizable and keeping with the online gambling theme I'll wager the early sales are all free or heavily 'discounted' with any serious money to be made only in the last 1/4 when / if the thing becomes well-known.
posted by scheptech at 4:39 PM on October 1, 2005

I so very wish I had thought of this.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:43 PM on October 1, 2005

*sigh*. This is so lame, I never would have thought of it. $240,000? Find it hard to believe. But several thousand? It's plausible enough that I can see quite a few people tossing a hundred bucks here or there to get some traffic.

Still, even if he's made 1/10 what he says, that's still a good chunk of change for about the lightest weight site you could host. Hell, even 1/50 of what he says would have covered hosting costs as well as paid rent for quite a few months....

Sometimes I think I'll never be rich simply because I'm never foolish and naive enough to try anything- I can always think of 20 ways an idea won't work. I guess it's too hard to get in the head of dumb people- i's unimaginable to me that anyone would pay for ads on a site like this, much less that people would follow these ads in sufficient quantities to justify the ads.

And yet, there it is. Go figure. I used to joke I could invent a product called the "nose picker 2000", nothing more than a plastic hand, index finger extended, on a stick, and sell a million of them on late night tv. Sometimes I wonder if you really could make money that way- apparently, there is no bottom to idiocy.
posted by hincandenza at 4:45 PM on October 1, 2005

I feel sorry for anyone who looks at a successful business model and concludes "people are stupid" instead of "wow, that guy was smart".
posted by runkelfinker at 4:51 PM on October 1, 2005

Why does a person who finds this page then want to peruse a mozaic of adverts to find one to click on? I can't believe the advertisers get a very good click-through rate. I imagine most people visit this site, then thick "heh - cool idea! Wish I'd thought of that!" - then simply leave the site without clicking on any of the adverts. 99% of advertising on the web is targeted - this is a mozaic of untargeted adverts.
posted by FieldingGoodney at 4:53 PM on October 1, 2005

Huh. Guess it's part of a whole trend. What an odd one!
posted by redbeard at 4:54 PM on October 1, 2005

It seems that if you are an early buyer, it is in your best interest to promote this site and recruit more buyers so as to increase the value of your "real estate"

As such, isnt this just a ponzi scheme? i.e. a scam.
posted by vacapinta at 4:55 PM on October 1, 2005

It's not a ponzi scam. A ponzi scam pays off early investors with later investors' money. This thing just incentivizes advertisers to promote the advertising mechanism in addition to purchasing space.
posted by sonofsamiam at 5:03 PM on October 1, 2005

It seems that if you are an early buyer, it is in your best interest to promote this site and recruit more buyers so as to increase the value of your "real estate"

As such, isnt this just a ponzi scheme? i.e. a scam.

vacapinta: The spaces cannot be resold. I think you can change the image, but not the link that it points to

although I suppose you could link each block to a seperate redirect, and resell the space that way. In general once you buy a spot on this page the money is gone. I don't think it's a very good way to get traffic, either.

Huh. Guess it's part of a whole trend. What an odd one!

Yeah, I'm guessing these other sites think they can copy his success. Maybe one or two of them can, but it's completly pointless if everyone does it..

I love how people honestly think this guy has made $240,000 on this so far.

Actualy, a lot of the links are affiliate links. Of course he hasn't really sold that many pixels, but as long as people think that he has some will buy spots...
posted by delmoi at 5:04 PM on October 1, 2005

I used to joke I could invent a product called the "nose picker 2000", nothing more than a plastic hand, index finger extended, on a stick, and sell a million of them on late night tv. Sometimes I wonder if you really could make money that way- apparently, there is no bottom to idiocy.

Overall, I agree with you. But I must believe, lest I go mad, that there is a bottom to idiocy, and that it lies a few fathoms above the "nose picker 2000".
posted by Rawhide at 5:06 PM on October 1, 2005

Newly Released Ten Million Dollar Website Aims to Improve More Than Just the Internet.
posted by ericb at 5:08 PM on October 1, 2005

Parents Launch the Road to a Million Web Site to Keep Mom at Home with Baby.
posted by ericb at 5:09 PM on October 1, 2005

And many others.

Soon, there will be a million 'Million Dollar' homepages. I can only imagine the number of URLs which contain the word "million" or "milliondollars" that are be registered right now.
posted by ericb at 5:12 PM on October 1, 2005

I feel sorry for anyone who looks at a successful business model and concludes "people are stupid" instead of "wow, that guy was smart".

The two are not mutually exclusive. That guy was smart to exploit others' stupidity.
posted by scottreynen at 5:12 PM on October 1, 2005

Oh - BTW - I need to pay off my credit card bills. If any of you'd like to help out, please send a check -- or Paypal payment. Thanks. I love ya' for it. God blesses you for it. Bu-buy!
posted by ericb at 5:14 PM on October 1, 2005

This is beyond stupid, as pretty much the only people who will ever see this advertising space are the advertisers. And of course, fools like us who link to it, but... still. It's like putting billboards on the dark side of the moon.
posted by mek at 5:36 PM on October 1, 2005

"to Keep Mom at Home with Baby"

Oh no. I can't belieeeve it.

Anyone for roadtomydrugdealer.com or would that alienate the good hearted folks who want to help strangers on the internet?
posted by funambulist at 5:37 PM on October 1, 2005

It's close to capacity, don't you think? The big ads are taken, I guess there is room for more but there is so much clutter that you won't see it. But I said that THURSDAY and he had $170,000. It might keep going, but I'm sure there is a breaking point.
posted by tomplus2 at 5:47 PM on October 1, 2005

I still don't understand the million dollar home page proves that anyone is stupid. Is the creator, Alex Tew, stupid for daring to have an idea? Are the journalists who picked up on a silly little story three weeks ago stupid? Are the advertisers stupid - those same people who are getting an ever increasing number of eyeballs for a one-off fee? Or is it the visitors to the site - do you have to be stupid to visit novelty websites, and if so where does that leave the denizens of Metafilter?
posted by runkelfinker at 5:48 PM on October 1, 2005

Anyone for roadtomydrugdealer.com

That reminds me of the panhandlers whom I've come across who, instead of saying "A buck so I can buy food," say "A buck so I can buy booze" -- often with a smile -- and are more likely to appeal to me to shell out some pocket change, ya' know, 'cause they're being honest. ; )
posted by ericb at 5:49 PM on October 1, 2005

stupid? ... even if he's heavily discounted his pixels, he's made a good deal of money

i bet he's going "duh" all the way to the bank
posted by pyramid termite at 5:54 PM on October 1, 2005

ericb: yep exactly what I meant :)
posted by funambulist at 5:59 PM on October 1, 2005

runkelfinker, pyramid termite: see what scottreynen wrote above.
posted by funambulist at 6:03 PM on October 1, 2005

Wouldn't this help google ranking, even if no one clicks on your pixel or two? Hundreds (thousands?) of sites link to this page which links to hundreds of sites? It's a snowball, too.

Like the freeXproduct sites, this is kinda genius if insidious.
posted by shoepal at 6:04 PM on October 1, 2005

Not worth 2 cents now. Site is "Farked".
posted by RMALCOLM at 6:16 PM on October 1, 2005

Shoepal: I expect google's algo for discounting linkfarms will mean a link from this web page is not worth anything SEO-wise. The pagerank is currently 0 for their homepage. Even if its' PR goes up, sharing their outbound rank with thousands of sites will have no positive effect.

I expect the only benefit would be if an ad there actually drives any volume of traffic to you.
posted by login at 6:22 PM on October 1, 2005

Just when I get to thinking that FPP quality can't possibly get any worse. . .
posted by spock at 6:51 PM on October 1, 2005

I used to joke I could invent a product called the "nose picker 2000", nothing more than a plastic hand, index finger extended, on a stick, and sell a million of them on late night tv.

Not unless you want to violate this patent.
posted by I Love Tacos at 6:56 PM on October 1, 2005

You know, for the amount of effort involved, the payoff is incredibly high. Another one of those good simple ideas that we all should have thought of and actually done, but someone else thought and did.

It makes me think there is hope, but it bums me out all the same.
posted by jmccorm at 7:06 PM on October 1, 2005

I used to joke I could invent a product called the "nose picker 2000", nothing more than a plastic hand, index finger extended, on a stick, and sell a million of them on late night tv.

You'd need a product with a newer-sounding name to get my attention. oh wait, you got my attention... but not my money!
posted by clyde at 7:45 PM on October 1, 2005

"Sometimes I think I'll never be rich simply because I'm never foolish and naive enough to try anything- I can always think of 20 ways an idea won't work. I guess it's too hard to get in the head of dumb people- i's unimaginable to me that anyone would pay for ads on a site like this, much less that people would follow these ads in sufficient quantities to justify the ads."


I feel your pain. I've always thought the same thing, including about music I could compose, but would be to painful to compose.
posted by ParisParamus at 9:26 PM on October 1, 2005

Genius = yes. Stupid = yes.
posted by Guerilla at 10:08 PM on October 1, 2005

'cause they're being honest. ; )

Wouldn't it be funny if they bought a sandwich with the money then, but they knew you wouldn't believe them?
posted by drezdn at 10:31 PM on October 1, 2005

I'm Rich Your Not"

Ah, the wondrous, luminous joy of being taunted by the illiterate.

a product called the "nose picker 2000"

I see no reason why this product (maybe called the Knows Pikker 2010) would not be huge. Dave Barry alone -- author of Boogers Are My Beat -- would promote it so hard you'd make your money back right there.

It could be the new Pet Rock (or Pop Rocks) of the decade. On the other hand, maybe you have to have a true passion for such idiocy, and if you approached it with hesitation it wouldn't work. The fact that you take your name hincandenza from a 1000+ page work of literature might indicate that, sadly, you just don't have such stupidity in you.
posted by LeLiLo at 10:45 PM on October 1, 2005

Stupid as a 300% ROI.

The ad in question is middle-right, about an inch and a half down from the top.
posted by dhartung at 11:21 PM on October 1, 2005

I munged that. It's 300x, not 300%. It's a 30,000% ROI.
posted by dhartung at 11:22 PM on October 1, 2005

Anyone for roadtomydrugdealer.com
I actually bought www.supportmydrughabit.com about a month ago, just for the record before this thread and before I heard of the milliondollarpixel guy.

Nothing there, yet, but once it's up I'll let you guys know. I envisage just a big paypal button in the middle of the page, and it's going to work, I tell you!
posted by Meatbomb at 11:45 PM on October 1, 2005

hincandenza: I used to joke I could invent a product called the "nose picker 2000", nothing more than a plastic hand, index finger extended, on a stick, and sell a million of them on late night tv.

I Love Tacos Not unless you want to violate this patent.

Well for the love of fuck butter!!! And to think I was making the nose picker joke way back in '94/'95. I have yet again paid the price for my apathy!!!

lelilo: [M]aybe you have to have a true passion for such idiocy, and if you approached it with hesitation it wouldn't work. The fact that you take your name hincandenza from a 1000+ page work of literature might indicate that, sadly, you just don't have such stupidity in you.

Yeah, that's what I like to tell myself too. It helps me sleep at night, after all. It's not the dumb ideas, it's the filter in our heads that tells us it's a dumb idea, and prevents us from following it stupidly to the point that Dave Barry starts pimping your dumb idea and you sell a half million units just as novelty items. I'll never have that conviction- I have a hard time working up the motivation to get a hair cut.

Still- you only need to strike "stupidity gold" once to be set for life! :) Or go for the real money- selling "stupidity gold" kits to the stupid, just like they did in Seattle during the gold rush. I guess that's what the Tom Vu's and Carlton Sheets and those types are doing: map and pickaxe salesmen for the stupidity gold rush.
posted by hincandenza at 12:27 AM on October 2, 2005

That nose picker is pretty creepy (might need a tif viewer plug-in to see the image).
Almost like using the finger you ripped of someone's dead body. I don't think I could bring myself to use that.
posted by sour cream at 1:26 AM on October 2, 2005

I'm sure we'll all agree, to get semantic, that the underlying phenomena which are being capitalized on are stupid, but the capitalization is smart. anyway. best of the web?
posted by mek at 2:56 AM on October 2, 2005

It's good, but doesn't have the dexterity needed to to perform detailed picking work - what you need is something like a textured, index finger only disposable, textured latex glove.

Right, I'm off to the patent office to protect my "Fingerdom"
goldmine...needs a snappier name, though...
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:06 AM on October 2, 2005

Awwwww, crap.

http://www.condomthai.com/pro_finger_condom.php
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:07 AM on October 2, 2005

IANAM (I am not a Marxist) but websites like this make me want to cry myself to sleep clutching a copy of Das Kapital.
posted by ori at 3:48 AM on October 2, 2005

A friend & I are currently developing a pretty smart idea and we live in near mortal fear that someone else out there will beat us to the punch. The problem we have is that we're developing something out of an existing idea/product so there's no chance of registering or copyrighting.

Anyhow, fair play to this kid. Had problem, came up with creative attempt at a solution, realised it and it came off for him.

Any idiot can have an idea but taking that idea & making it reality & then getting the reality out there into the wider world is a whole new set of skills.
posted by i_cola at 5:08 AM on October 2, 2005

I first heard about this site about 3 months ago, when he started. Then again, about 2 weeks ago, I was appalled to learn that he had supposedly earned $140k. Now you say he's nearly doubled it to $240k? I'm not buying it.
posted by crunchland at 7:37 AM on October 2, 2005

kind of like savetoby.com the people that claim they will eat the rabbit if someone doesnt pay them a bunch of money...thing is they keep moving the date they will eat the thing back farther and farther.
posted by stilgar at 8:30 AM on October 2, 2005

if you click the paypal link for save toby - it looks like they have been cut off.
posted by centrs at 9:37 AM on October 2, 2005

Alex's other site is pretty cool, too.

This, though, is such a brilliant idea. I love the way it sits at the intersection of One-Off Lark and Dead Serious Marketing Campaign. The shocking runaway success is such a hilarious slap in the face to all those shitty "street marketing" firms, too.

Somewhere, the Gods of the Internet are laughing their pixellated heads off. It almost drowns out the sound of all those TV, newspaper and Madison Avenue execs sobbing, and the dumbass "free money" sites dumping coins in Alex's pocket. Love it love it love it.

I can't believe the advertisers get a very good click-through rate.

Well, the mouseover text helps you avoid the most obviously boring ads, but I'll still bet click-through is higher at Alex's site than at any of the more closely targeted sites they've been using. And the untargeted approach is part of the appeal; in among all the crap casino and personals stuff I found a fun Japanese Robots blog and gay gossip blog pretty quickly.
posted by mediareport at 11:14 AM on October 2, 2005

Now you say he's nearly doubled it to $240k? I'm not buying it.

I'm reserving room for skepticism on the amount, too, but there's no denying the attention. And while I seem to recall The Register not always having the greatest reputation for accuracy, the evidence of filled pixels *is* piling up. Or are you suggesting, crunchland, that Alex is using company logos and such to link to sites that haven't paid him?
posted by mediareport at 11:20 AM on October 2, 2005

You can also send a kid to porn star school!!!
posted by atomicmedia at 2:32 PM on October 2, 2005

Sometimes I think I'll never be rich simply because I'm never foolish and naive enough to try anything-


only on mefi. elitist fuck.
posted by ackeber at 2:39 PM on October 2, 2005

I don't think that calling yourself a scaredy-cat is really elitist.
posted by cell divide at 2:45 PM on October 2, 2005

And the untargeted approach is part of the appeal; in among all the crap casino and personals stuff I found a fun Japanese Robots blog and gay gossip blog pretty quickly.

I think this is important. It's certainly what got me. I haven't clicked on a banner ad in about five years. I haven't even clicked on a Google Adwords link in six months. But I just clicked on about a dozen of these just to see what sort of "idiots" were buying space on this site, and trying to find the ones that were real people rather than online casinos.
posted by Jimbob at 3:44 PM on October 2, 2005

Why pay five times more?

Of course, the answer is: why pay 20 times more?
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:22 PM on October 2, 2005

Note: self-referential link in previous post.

As I say on the FAQ on the site: Am I trying to be a jerk? Heck no...if anything I'm expressing my love of the satirical, and I really do hope both of those sites do really well. If someone ends up creating an even cheaper site, I'll probably laugh myself silly.
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:54 PM on October 2, 2005

And I thought the internet was destined to become the AM radio of all media. But this is like the distilled, pure, heart of crap. And somehow, it manages to be astounding ugly, to boot.

It's almost, but not quite, as stupid an HTML-based email client.
posted by cytherea at 7:21 PM on October 2, 2005

Yeah, kinda like a web-based program allowing employees of the auditorium where you work to sign up for shifts online.

...

Seriously...the web is what it is. Go ahead and bitch about it, but unless you're out there doing something that other people haven't yet done, STFU.
posted by Kickstart70 at 7:45 PM on October 2, 2005

Another long list many more million pixel homepages with short reviews about them. Updated often.
posted by webmeta at 8:09 PM on October 2, 2005

Go ahead and bitch about it, but unless you're out there doing something that other people haven't yet done, STFU.

What, like making a website that only charges a half-penny per pixel?

Oh, I see. There might have been some confusion: please don't be offended, my comment was about the original million dollar site. Your site is something totally innovative, a boon to mankind, and gorgeous to boot.
posted by cytherea at 9:12 PM on October 2, 2005

That page was a giant portal to everything shitty on the internet. Not that it wasn't entertaining... For instance, the pencil in the middle at the bottom of this page links to The Positive Integers, which is apparently part of this internet marketing company. I'm really confused as to how they intend on making money from the site or what other intention they had when creating it. Not only is it an informational website related to number theory and positive integers but the only ads are unrelated text links at the bottom of the page.
posted by nTeleKy at 9:50 AM on October 3, 2005

cytherea: why thank you.

Anyway, I came off harsher than I should have. My point is, with all sorts of people open to invention on the internet these days, there's bound to be a really bad shit-to-schwing ratio. My onepennypixel.com page qualifies under 'shit', and that's rather intentional since it was intended as satire. I'm completely freakin' shocked that people have actually bought blocks of it.
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:25 AM on October 3, 2005

It's only clever if you pass it on, so DON'T.
posted by HTuttle at 10:54 PM on October 3, 2005

jmccorn wrote:
You know, for the amount of effort involved, the payoff is incredibly high. Another one of those good simple ideas that we all should have thought of and actually done, but someone else thought and did.


The first part is true, but I might have to argue with the notion that it's a 'good' simple idea. Someone had to be the first to think of spam, and probably wound up with a huge payoff for the amount of effort they put in. Not that this is as obnoxious as spam, but it doesn't seem like quality to me, and the fact that someone made some dough off of it doesn't mean that it should have actually been done.

dhartung wrote:

Stupid as a 300% ROI.


That link is the entirety of Alex's pitch to potential advertisers. Considering his motivations, I have a hard time swallowing the numbers without a grain (or a few pounds) of salt.

Meatbomb wrote:

I actually bought www.supportmydrughabit.com about a month ago, just for the record before this thread and before I heard of the milliondollarpixel guy.

In a slightly more charitable vain, I had the idea of setting up a website to collect donations to score drugs for the junkie victims of Katrina. Imagine, things are bad enough for them and they're most likely cut off from their hookups as well. Being dope-sick under those conditions would be utter hell. And no mainstream news or charity is going to be looking out for them.

Of course, there's also a great potential for personal profit. Who's going to expect any sort of reliable accounting for a project like that? The dealers are all going to be making money, I don't think I'd feel too bad taking a small(?) percentage off the top myself.

Maybe I should get on this. It's probably too late for Katrina, though. I'll have to wait for the next big (rather, well-reported) American disaster.

I wonder what the legal implications are. I mean, clearly buying and distributing the dope itself would be illegal, but is there anything wrong with running such a website itself? Any lawyers out there care to respond? I'd probably wind up needing an attorney eventually anyway, I can offer a percentage of this huge stack of money I'm going to wind up with. If anyone else wants to help out somehow and get in on this, email [e-mail] .

And so it goes.
posted by Bokononist at 6:49 AM on October 4, 2005