The never-stopping wheel of commerce and the media hunger for stories: a couple the gnostic snake Ouroboros, eternally eating its own tail, would perfectly symbolize. Take young brit Alex Tew (21), just about to start college, pondering how to make a few quids for a pair of socks and some beer. He stumbled upon this fool-proof (as far as he is concerned) recipe for success. Tell the media that you want to raise 1,000,000 dollars by selling ad space on your personal webpage, which should be a desirable location for on-line ads because you are trying to make 1,000,000 dollars. How did the media answer? “Wow, this kid is going to make 1,000,000 dollars because he has an idea which we will frame in such a way to make it worth 1,000,000 dollars” (if it sounds like one of Glenn Beck’s jokes, well, it does!).
Alex has just made his million, giving a new claim to fame to the self-fulfilling prophecy industries of all kind. His MillionDollarHomepage raised 1,000,000 (before taxes) in a little over 4 months, with the combined help of The Daily Telegraph, NBC, WSJ, Sky, BBC, USTODAY and too many other media outlets to mention. His blog is really fascinating.
(BTW, IMHO his genius was not in coming up with the idea, but in deciding to go for the (media) jugular from day one).
(Did I mention that blogging was invovled in this story? Oh, yeah, I did!).
The thousands of copy-cats that appeared after milliondollarhomepage made it big won’t get too far since the idea of selling pixels is no longer novel! But now this site has popped up:
Claiming to “change the way advertising works”, OnlyOneAd.com is doing something truly unique. It’s selling only one ad. That’s right, there is only space for ONE ad on the page. The first ad costs $1. To replace the ad, the next advertiser must pay $2. After that, it costs $4, and so on. Each new ad costs twice the amount of the previous ad. That means the 21st ad costs over one million dollars. The creator seems convinced he can reach his goal, which actually seems possible if he can generate enough buzz. He’s keeping a detailed blog, and so far only the 1st ad has sold for $1! How is this going to turn out?
http://www.onlyonead.com/
I think this is just a joke.