I’m sure many of you have heard of Alex Tew and his creation, the Million Dollar Homepage. Alex had a unique idea to create a website and sell advertising using a “per pixel” format to raise one million dollars. At a glance it seemed like a crazy idea but to Alex’s joy it was crazy enough to work. He managed to drum up enough publicity to gain traction, his idea exploded and he made his million dollars (and then sum!).
At my other blog, Entrepreneur’s Journey we took part by conducting a marketing experiment and purchased some pixel space back when the website was about half way to one million (look for the little “Y”, that’s us).
What I particularly like about Alex’s concept was not that he made one million dollars from a simple website – it was because he created a whole new ad format. Before his site the “pixel ad” was no where to be seen (at least I had never seen it) and after Alex you could find pixel ads all over the place.
Of course there were copycats and I wonder sometimes at the stupidity of some people thinking they could replicate his success with half baked ideas for “top lists” or special “once-in-a-life-time-be-part-of-internet-history” formats that were, well, not that remarkable and clearly hoping to cash in on the fad. If you had any business sense you would realize that it was never going to work directly copying the million dollar homepage – it was a once-in-a-lifetime website.
After Alex’s site I noticed some websites started testing using small blocks of pixels ads to sell advertising space in areas where they might otherwise have not made any money from. I stumbled across a few blogs using pixel ads too. Then there were the software makers who caught on with the fad by creating ready-to-go pixel ad website packages that instantly created a million dollar homepage lookalikes, which is a much better idea than actually trying to replicate the one million dollar homepage, in my opinion.
In most cases it’s better to piggy back off the success of the incumbent by creating a complimentary product, rather than trying to compete with them. Why try and beat eBay when you can create services to help eBay users (just as many people did – read the eBay book to learn more).
While it’s nice to create a new industry or new product it’s not easy. We all hope that one day we can be like Alex and enjoy the kind of success he has but let’s not forget there was a lot of luck involved too. You always hear the stories of success and not the hundreds of thousands of ideas online like Alex’s that never succeeded – his was a rare case.
If you have an innovative idea for a new business run with it. Give it your best shot and a real chance to succeed. If it doesn’t work out or you just can’t think of an innovative business idea consider using the success of someone else’s concept to start a new business offering support products or services to the customers of the original idea.
When the next truly massive new innovation kicks off – think Google, eBay, iPod – that’s the perfect time to start thinking about what the customers would need that is currently not provided. You don’t always have to be the original innovator to start a successful business.
I think you give some good advice in this article. Coming up with the Next Big Thing is not easy. Riding the coattails, so to speak, is considerably less difficult. I think the best thing to do is identify the needs of the people already using the service/product/innovation and try to help them by catering to those needs.
Quite right Nick. It’s also a lot easier to identify sub-markets once the main market is established, which makes your positioning and branding strategy easier to formulate.
My view …
The pixel ad craze can’t last. The tide should in fact, already be going out.
There are just too many reasons why …
1. Pixel ads are limited to one page.
2. Pixel ads are all scrunched together.
3. A price per pixel threshold limits advertisers in many cases, to small image sizes.
4. The page limit and the image size limit can both be easily broken with certain techniques that then will make charging by the pixel obviously not viable by comparison to sites that implement list ad techniques on image ads. The concept will become clear as day to the average advertiser and they won’t stay on the pixel ad band wagon when the mud is rinsed away.
5. Multi-media is not well represented in pixel ads and can not be well represented in pixel ads.
6. There is no categorization or localization of pixel ads. The basic phone book for example, serves as an excellent analog of what an advertising page should do … let visitors look up what they want and find it … grouped with other ads for the same category and in many cases same demographic. Is it any wonder that the lack of categorization in pixel ads can result in odd image border partnerships such as a porn purveyor being bordered with an advertiser for children’s books? I’m no prude, but what can those pixel ad promoters have on their mind except a dollar? Classical Greek virtues in pure forms – phooey! – out the window, and as always, quantity over quality in life.
7. There is no room for presentation effects on the pixel ad page. The one page limit effectively seals a pixel ad site into the same presentation mapping as every and all other similar sites ( with some minor variation in themes ) and with the temporal permenance of a stone statue in a park covered by pigeon poop. Ranking is the only virtue pixel ads now offer and that an advertiser can respond to for such sites and even that is questionable.
8. The ability of a pixel ad site to evolve is nil. If any part of the technology or advertising environment changes in the n or n+ years that an ad was purchased for, the ad will become a dull dinosaur fossilized for posterity reminder of what was historically true for a period of a few months back in 2005/2006 and will be ignored thereafter.
9. Longevity and repeatable business on a pixel ad site is not even mentionable. An advertiser may get a spot for 5 years, but it’s going to be the same old ad for five years and visitors are sure to ho-hum it after a short period of time. An advertiser should be able to post a short term ad and come back and post another ad, with a different look, feel and promise to the visitor. There is by way of example, a large carbonated beverage company whose product has not changed in many years, but they do change the label and even the shape of the bottle every now and then, better still, offering different flavors as well as the variations in packaging. Lock into a pixel ad and that extra number of years purchased for the spot becomes a null investment, a black hole to throw money down.
10. Pixel ads are easy to sprout and sprout they have. But even in the pixel ad flowering, traditional list ads and category pages are holding their own and growing. There’s a reason. Advertisers who understand know the value of longevity, versatility, flexibility and moderability. The classified ad format is a case in point. Who for example, in their right mind, would post a yard sale on a pixel ad page? Even this blog is an analog of an advertisement ( of my humble opinion ) in list ad form. And be sure, it can be changed tomorrow if need be. Change is the wand that dictates a need for something more flexible. The true competition for pixel ads is the traditional list ad, classified ad and the scramble to obtain a niche on a popular page side bar, header or trailer and post there, a banner and/or other format ad.
11. The pixel ad craze is a temporary search engine and web host feast. Once the feast starts showing signs of weakening, industry support for them will falter dynamically and predictably, very intentionally. Pixel ads are therefore thriving under a guillotine.
And there are many other reasons to cite. The list is long.
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What are the benefits of pixel ads?
Short list:
1. They are new and unique and many small entrepeneurs can cash in on the ground floor. Their uniqueness temporarily holds a spot light in the internet advertising sphere and therefore advertisers believe and are partially correct that they can improve their visibility and audience by residing on a pixel ad page.
2. Search engine, web host and other internet industry businesses have an opportunity to cash in while the interest in pixel ads lasts. Pixel Ads temporarily generate a wide economic surge.
3. More pointedly, Pixel ads are a kind of building block stimulus that indicates an internet market need to satisfy the advertising juggernaut. It demonstrates that businesses need and depend upon advertising to an extensive degree and are hungry for solutions that are not now adequately provided for on the internet. The smart advertising medium provider sees this and is surely prompted to look at how to use the image-link, flat rate fee aspects inherent in pixel block ads, to generate new techniques to satisfy the demand demonstrated by the rush for this short term flowering of a very restricted and untenable form of advertising.
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An alternative gesture: http://www.avenuesplus.com Something beyond the pixel.
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Have a nice day. 🙂
Brian – Wow! That was about two articles worth of commenting there!
I agree with most of your points too, although I mentioned pixel ads to demonstrate how to piggyback a business idea off another person’s big idea, your points are relevant.
I think pixel ads, while they do have some element of fad status, are yet another way for website owners to test monetization methods and utilize even more of their virtual real estate to earn an income. Because of this I think they are definitely here to stay.
I don’t think these copycat sites will be successful because they lack the one essential element that the million dollar homepage captured. From what I can see, there are two main components that make these ideas successful. First you need a gimmick. An original gimmick. This is what made his story newsworthy. This leads me to the second necessary piece which is publicity. This is where the copycat sites will fail. The story is old news. Nobody wants to cover a story that has already been written. Alex’s million dollar homepage knocked the publicity piece out of the park. His story was everywhere. The publicity is what drove the traffic to his site leading to more pixel sales.
Many people I think, try to think of the next ‘big thing’ and waste their time.
The next ‘big thing’ comes to people naturally, you don’t sit around thinking about it and then it lands in your lap, it comes to you when its ready, for those certain people who can spot it and run with it properly.
Many people would benefit from taking an already established idea, and making it better ( like a better mouse trap ).. or by providing a side product/service to an established product ( like the many eBay services now marketed from 3rd parties ).
Sadly, many people want to be ‘first’ in something, instead of being ‘successful’.
I like your main point. I am actually attempting to find Joint Venture Partners who may piggyback on my sucess in anger management. I just began making DVDs to be used by providers by linking with four recent graduates from the University of Southern California Film School.
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The success won’t be duplicated, but as you stated the idea of selling pixel ads may provide some sites with additional revenue. I think it will help if the links are spiderable as well, giving some small seo benefit. If they are priced right, it could open up a new stream of revenue for website owners.
This was a very interesting article and this topic continues to raise my awareness on power of internet marketing, branding, and passive revenue