Cash pours in for student with $1 million Web idea

Reuters ^ | Dec 29, 2005 | Peter Graff

[george76]

If you have an envious streak, you probably shouldn't read this.

Because chances are, Alex Tew, a 21-year-old student from a small town in England, is cleverer than you.

And he is proving it by earning a cool million dollars in four months on the Internet.

Selling porn? Dealing prescription drugs? Nope.

All he sells are pixels, the tiny dots on the screen that appear when you call up his home page.

He had the brainstorm for his million dollar home page, called, logically enough, www.milliondollarhomepage.com, while lying in bed thinking out how he would pay for university.

The idea: turn his home page into a billboard made up of a million dots, and sell them for a dollar a dot to anyone who wants to put up their logo.

A 10 by 10 dot square, roughly the size of a letter of type, costs $100.

He sold a few to his brothers and some friends, and when he had made $1,000, he issued a press release.

That was picked up by the news media, spread around the Internet, and soon advertisers for everything from dating sites to casinos to real estate agents to The Times of London were putting up real cash for pixels, with links to their own sites.

So far they have bought up 911,800 pixels. Tew's home page now looks like an online Times Square, festooned with a multi-colored confetti of ads.

"All the money's kind of sitting in a bank account," Tew told Reuters from his home in Wiltshire, southwest England.

"I've treated myself to a car. I've only just passed my driving test so I've bought myself a little black mini."

[Kozak]

PT Barnum was right. One is born every minute.

[Uncledave]

Here's the page:

http://milliondollarhomepage.com/

Still room to buy an FR link!

[GatorGirl]

I'm not envious, I'm impressed! Good for him!

[MarkeyD]

Me too! Just like FreeRepublic, I wish I'd thought of it.

[Don Corleone]

Pure Genius a la Bill Gates!

[mnehring]

I'll add this to the 'why didn't I think of that' file.

[yer gonna put yer eye out]

"He had the brainstorm for his million dollar home page, called, logically enough, www.milliondollarhomepage.com, while lying in bed thinking out how he would pay for university."

Problem solved......:0)

[Chuckster]

That is just TOO cool!

[Mr. Blonde]

I'd hate to have an interviewer ask me what I think about in bed.

[MarkeyD]

You should read the testimonials.

[mystery-ak]

Pretty cool....try running your cursor over it....

[jdm]

Here he is:

[furquhart]

Hell, I'd sell a page full of adspace for $10,000.

[birbear]

Lots of poker ads and "get rich quick" stuff.

[Bon mots]

"He had the brainstorm for his million dollar home page, called, logically enough, www.milliondollarhomepage.com, while lying in bed thinking out how he would pay for university."

Now he can pay for his University, his first car, and his first home and still have money to put aside for his kids' college.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Ha Ha Ha, good for him!

[oh8eleven]

Any word from the Brit gov't on how much this kid owes them?
Probably only about 75%-80%.

[billorites]

"He had the brainstorm for his million dollar home page, called, logically enough, www.milliondollarhomepage.com, while lying in bed thinking out how he would pay for university."

I spent college lying in bed thinking about girls.

[revtown]

Seems like he blew it.
From what I can see the money buys you the pixels for good.
He should of made it for only 1 year, then he'd have a lifetime income of $1M/yr..