In August 2005 a young Englishman by the name of Alex Tew got a bright idea. He wanted to make money on the internet to pay for his studies. The idea had to be simple, not take too much of his time and be able to generate a lot of money. Selling advertising space could generate money, but the traditional way of advertising with banners on a webpage simply wouldn’t do. To make a lot of money, a lot of webpages, space and time would be needed. So Alex thought of selling really small ads – and a lot of them – on one webpage. Alex created an image made of 1,000 times 1,000 pixels – a total of 1,000,000 – and intended to sell each pixel for $1. This one image could fit to one webpage and would generate $1,000,000 if all pixels were sold. And thus, the Million Dollar Homepage was born.
Alex – like any good salesman - started by pestering friends and family and urging them to buy some pixels from him. As he started getting orders, he made the very wise decision of alerting the media of his idea. The media liked the idea of the entrepreneurial student trying to make money on the internet for his studies by coming up with an idea that simple. Alex played the media very well indeed and appeared in print, radio, TV and on the internet. As the story picked up two months into the project, Alex hired a media consultant to help him handle the frenzy. It took only 5 months until the 1,000,000 pixels were sold and the $1,000,000 were made.
Quickly a lot of copycats copied Alex’ idea and many more have followed. It is now estimated that there are now more than 4,000 sites selling pixels in a way similar to the Million Dollar Homepage. Only a very tiny fraction of these are actually making any money, so why is that?
The original page owes its success primarily to the publicity it got in the media. As any new copycat website has no or very little news value, why would anyone pick up on the story? As there are now more than 4,000 very similar sites, how could any one site generate enough traffic for advertisers to be interested in buying advertising space?
There are slight variations over the basic business idea of pixel advertising. Some pixel websites now offer free pixels and premium pixels with better location than the free ones. Some websites offer pixels on a picture of the moon or a map of a certain country or region. Other websites offer intricate ways of trading pixels or pixels at $0.01 or less.
Currently it appears that the pixel websites offering free pixels are generating the most traffic. It is likely that the majority of this traffic is from advertisers wanting to make use of the offer for free inbound links to their website.
In my view, there will never be another website making any significant amount of money on simply selling pixels, no matter what variation over the basic idea they may follow.
There are however still business opportunities related to pixel advertising. First of all, a number of websites are offering scripts which can support pixel websites. Those who want to create a pixel website can purchase a script which provides a ready made website with automated payment handling, uploading of pixel ads etc. A large number of new pixel websites have been created with such scripts and this area of business still appear to be reasonably brisk.
Another area related to pixel advertising is websites catering for the ‘pixel community’ - administrators of pixel websites and those dreaming of making their own site. Such internet users are keen on promoting, voting, categorising and comparing their own websites to others’. Websites likes The Pixel Wars list a large number of pixel websites and allows its visitors to cast their vote for websites they like the best or least. They also have a forum where pixel website administrators can share ideas or discuss the latest trends in pixel advertising. A visit to alexa.com reveals that a website like The Pixel Wars has decent visitor numbers and that it may therefore be possible to generate decent advertising income on it.
It is anyone’s guess what the future of pixel advertising will be. In my view, no new site selling pixels will ever make any significant revenue. To make money on the internet, there are plenty other more profitable roads to follow.
About the author:Andrew Nielsen is the author of "The Online Business Builder". He is an internet entrepreneur and is currently helping business start-ups and individuals make money on the Internet. Visit http://www.i-want-to-be-rich.com or mailto: an@i-want-to-be-rich.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Nielsen
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