30Dec/05Off
Cash pours in for student with $1 million Web idea
This is the kind of story that ends with me on my knees, banging my fists on the floor, screaming, “Why not me, god, WHY NOT ME?”
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December 30th, 2005 - 09:20
“…me on my knees, banging my fists on the floor, screaming…”
That’s frighteningly close to being Tom Cruise! :P
December 30th, 2005 - 09:35
ha!
December 30th, 2005 - 09:41
Wow. I’m bitter.
December 30th, 2005 - 09:57
Okay, I’m a little slow so I don’t get it. This dude has basically made his website an ad, and for some reason companies are paying him astronomical amounts to put their ad on his page? Why are people paying him so much? I don’t get it.
December 30th, 2005 - 10:15
It just looks tacky to me. But hey, what do I know?
December 30th, 2005 - 10:22
According to the article, the advertisers are getting big traffic from their ads, especially relative to the amount they’ve paid for them. And now that this article is out, and we’re blogging about it, that traffic will only increase. It’s a brilliant example of a “show about nothing” that goes on to make huge money precisely because it’s a show about nothing. It will burn out after a few months probably, but before then, this kid will have millions of dollars in his pocket and probably a new job. And it’s all perfectly legal. As somebody who works for a marketing department, I have to say kudos to him! It was a clever idea, and he know how to “work it” by investing the early money he made into a press release — that was probably the big turning point for him. From there, it apparently just snowballed.
What will be really sad is all the corporations who will try to somehow use this kid’s unique idea, not understanding that it only worked precisely because it was a unique idea. I expect Microsoft to have a “page about nothing” any day now … and to claim that they invented it … and to drive every other company with a page about nothing out of business within a year.
December 30th, 2005 - 10:27
I’m happy for him, if not a lot jealous! I want my 2 (million) dollars! But here’s the other part I don’t understand…all those ads are on one page…milliondollarpage.com. I’ve never heard of that page, and those ads are only good if people go to the page. And the only reason to go to the page would be to see ads or buy one. So I don’t really see where the traffic is coming from, considering I try to avoid ads like the plague.
December 30th, 2005 - 10:32
I think The GB said it best, it’s getting traffic simply because it’s got buzz. Personally I think the page looks kind of cool and I hate adds too. It’s freakin simplistically brilliant and this kid should get whatever is coming his way.
December 30th, 2005 - 10:34
Plus, forget big companies – how about the local band that has an ad there for next to nothing that’s now getting thousands of hits a day? I wish I had a small business, I’d buy some pixels.
December 30th, 2005 - 10:37
I don’t believe it. And yes, it could be because I’m just jellus.
December 30th, 2005 - 10:41
Also keep in mind that that page must be playing all kinds of havoc with search engine algorithms. I don’t pretend to understand much about the finer points of Search Engine Optimization (despite being a web designer — SSSHHH, DON’T TELL ANYBODY!!!), but the cross-linking benefits of being on this page with thousands of other websites is probably yooge. I’m sure Google and the others will eventually compensate for it, but in the meantime, just being on that page could potentially improve a website’s search engine relevance … which would indirectly result in more traffic.
December 30th, 2005 - 10:49
Why would you not believe it?
December 30th, 2005 - 11:37
That 911,800 worth of companies/people paid $100 each. Seems like a lot of people – wildly inflated to me.
But, I’m broke and have no million dollar idea – what do I know?
December 30th, 2005 - 11:48
If you look at the site, you’ll see that some companies bought more than just the 10×10 square. So it’s probably not 900,000 companies.
Blogads for popular websites can go for like $5K for one week’s worth of advertising and tons of companies buy that space, so I don’t see why it would be hard to believe that someone would buy space on this one, knowing that it was becoming an internet “oddity” and would generate thousands of pageviews in a span of a couple of weeks.
December 30th, 2005 - 12:13
I think the idea is totally plausible – it’s the numbers. But I am a cynic.
December 30th, 2005 - 12:28
Knowing and seeing the viral nature of the internet, I have no problem believing this. But if you don’t, you don’t.
January 1st, 2006 - 17:43
I first heard about this on the evening news when he had just begun it – there were like 6 teeny little ads and a whole bunch of grey space. That (relatively large) Golden Palace Casino ad was there right from the get-go. I’m glad to find out this actually worked for him and he’s being smart about it.
January 10th, 2006 - 19:39
That’s cool he made million dollar, but question is if you want to buy some thing would you clcik on milliondollarpage.com , I think its a waste money to advertise…. in a month or two no one will visit this page ,right now we all click because its in news..