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Million Dollar boy

The website of Alex Tew, a 21-year-old entrepreneur, who hopes to pay his way through university by selling 1 million pixels of internet ad space for $1 each.

From The Times
October 14, 2005
Steve Boggan

Alex is 21. He's an ordinary middle-class undergraduate: lives in messy student digs, has spiky hair, drinks a lot of Coke. And is on his way to his first million. Meet an internet whiz-kid

It is difficult to spend time with Alex Tew without walking away feeling thoroughly miserable. It isn’t that his company isn’t pleasant; it is. It isn’t that he’s not extremely bright and unnervingly modest; he is both. More than anything, it is because during the time that you spend speaking to him — let’s say two hours’ time, as I did — he grows richer by almost £1,000.

And if you think that makes you feel bad, imagine the effect on students at Nottingham University when they learn that during freshers’ week at the beginning of this month, while they were blowing what little cash they had, Alex made more than £100,000.

This is because Alex is a 21-year-old phenomenon. He is growing richer and richer by having a simple idea that exploits the omnipresence of the internet and its users’ absolute respect for, and addiction to, anything unique. In short, he set up a website that offered almost nothing for $1 million. And the buyers are flooding in.

The student’s rags-to-riches story begins on a balmy night in August at Alex’s parents’ home near Cirencester in Wiltshire. It was late and he was contemplating the consequences of finally agreeing to go to university after three years of hopping from lousy job to crazy idea and back again. Alex had been accepted on a business management course at Nottingham (he has nine GCSEs and three A-levels at good grades) but fees and accommodation for the first year alone came to £7,000.

“To put it bluntly, I was broke and dreading the prospect of running up huge debts as a student,” he says. We are in the students’ union bar at the university and Alex is drinking a Coke. He is a fresh-faced, spiky-haired live wire — nothing like the geek I had expected, the kid whose simple idea has set the internet community alight.

“I’ve always been an ideas sort of person and I like to brainstorm at night before I go to sleep — it’s my most productive time. So I wrote down ‘How can I become a millionaire before I go to university?’ It was a rather ambitious question, but I went with it.
“Then I wrote down the attributes that this idea would need: it had to be simple to understand and to set up; it had to attract a lot of media interest; and it needed a good name. After I wrote down those three things, the idea just popped into my head. I’d like to say it was more dramatic than that, but it wasn’t.”

His thought processes went something like this: what if he set up a website called the Million Dollar Homepage which contained exactly one million pixels (the tiny dots that make up an image on a screen)? What if he then used that page as, in effect, an advertising notice board where advertisers — mainly from the US — could buy space at $1 (60p) per pixel?
What if, when you clicked on the group of pixels bought by an advertiser, you were directed to that advertiser’s homepage? And what if you told potential buyers that this is the first page of its kind, that it’s going to become incredibly famous — and that a young British student will be able to go to university as a result of your generosity? “I went to sleep and when I woke up I still thought it was a good idea,” Alex recalls. “So over the next few days I set up the website and off it went.”

The Million Dollar Homepage captured the imagination of advertisers and has now spawned dozens of copycat sites that will undoubtedly do nowhere near as well as Alex’s. The reason for that is simple: the selling point of his page is that it was the first. In the first four weeks alone, Alex sold more than 300,000 pixels at $1 each.

He sold his first blocks of 100 pixels (the minimum number the eye can read) to his three brothers and some friends. Once sales had topped $1,000, he used the money to pay for a press release that was picked up by the BBC. This, is turn, “went viral” across the internet as person after person e-mailed it to friends around the world.

“It is brilliant in its simplicity,” says Professor Martin Binks, director of the Nottingham University Institute for Entrepreneurial Innovation. “I think advertisers have been attracted to it by its novelty and by the curiosity factor. Those that are buying space have realized that the site has become a phenomenon and people are flocking to have a look at it; that makes the advertising good value for money.”

I asked one of Alex’s advertisers why they bought space on the site. Was it charity, or is his idea really that good? Chris Magras, chief executive of engineseeker.com, an Arizona-based company that helps clients’ websites to appear at the top of worldwide search engines, bought 6,400 pixels as soon as he heard about the Million Dollar Homepage.

“It was ingenious,” says Magras. “It is easy to make money on the internet, but it is very difficult to have a unique idea, and this was. I immediately knew that this website was going to attract huge numbers of visitors so I bought pixels there and then. The results for us were amazing. We used to get 40,000 visitors a day to our site — that’s now up to 60,000.”

Back in Alex’s student digs — he is staying in halls of residence — raggedy T-shirts are drying on a clothes horse, course work is scattered around and the sound of the leaking toilet next door is keeping him awake. He has been at university just two weeks and, so far, no one knows he is the Million Dollar Boy.

I ask him to show me his bank balance to ensure that this isn’t an elaborate hoax. There is £50,600 in there and rising. We look at his Pay Pal and 2Checkout accounts — the clearing houses that receive payments — and there is more than $100,000 waiting to be passed to him. I see other orders that will take the number of pixels sold to more than 300,000.

“It’s criminal, isn’t it?” he says. “It’s like Monopoly money. I’ve always had a knack for making money and I always knew I wanted to live on my wits. When I was 8, I used to draw cartoons, make comics, photocopy them and sell them at school for 30p. I’ve got lots more ideas that this money will help me make reality. I see it as fun.”

So, what will he do with all that money? “Well, so far, I’ve bought lots of socks,” he says. “My socks were a mess.” His favourites have a Space Invaders logo on them. “They’re made of pixels, see? I will confess that I have been to look at a Mini in a car showroom. I’d love a car, but I don’t want anything stupid like a BMW.”

The other students really haven’t latched on to his identity yet, and he’s a little worried about how they will react when they do. “I’ve been thinking about that and I suppose I’ll have to be on my guard a bit, wondering whether they just want to get to know me or the money,” he says. “I’ll have to rely on being a good judge of character until the novelty wears off.”

Million Dollar Homepage - Own a piece of internet history!

http://milliondollarhomepage.com/

Bhangra Knights vs Husan Video

"Tera husan bahut mujhe bhaata hai, Tere sang naachun jee chahta hai..." the catchy song in the ad (which re-emerged later in many hit remixed avatars) was composed by Dutch musicians Niels Zuiderhoek and Jeroen den Hengst.

Value

A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?" Hands started going up.

He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up. He then asked, "Who still wants it?"

Still the hands were up in the air. "Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.

He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special - Don't ever forget it!

Superb Definitions

School: A place where Papa pays and Son plays.

Life Insurance: A contract that keeps you poor all your life so that you can die Rich.

Nurse: A person who wakes you up to give you sleeping pills.

Marriage: It's an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her masters.

Divorce: Future tense of Marriage.

Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine willpower is defeated by feminine waterpower.

Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through 'the minds of either'.

Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.

Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.

Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.

Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.

Father: A banker provided by nature.

Criminal: A guy no different from the rest.... except that he got caught.

Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.

Politician: One who shakes your hand before elections and your Confidence after.

Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you by bills.

Classic: Books, which people praise, but do not read.

Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.

Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.

Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.

Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.

Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.

Experience: The name, men give to their mistakes.

Atom Bomb: An invention to end all inventions.

Philosopher: A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead.

Professor At IIM Explaining Marketing Concepts To Students

1. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. "Marry me!" - That's Direct Marketing"

2. You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says: "He's very rich. "Marry him." -That's Advertising"

3. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and get her telephone number. The next day, you call and say: "Hi, I'm very rich. "Marry me - That's Telemarketing"

4. You're at a party and see gorgeous girl. You get up and straighten your tie, you walk up to her and pour her a drink, you open the door (of the car) for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her ride and then say: "By the way, I'm rich. Will you "Marry Me?" - That's Public Relations

5. You're at a party and see gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and says:"You are very rich! "Can you marry ! me?" - That's Brand Recognition

6. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" She gives you a nice hard slap on your face. - "That's Customer Feedback"

7. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" And she introduces you to her husband. - "That's demand and supply gap"

8. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say anything, another person come and tell her: "I'm rich. Will you marry me?" and she goes with him - "That's competition eating into your market share"

9. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say: "I'm rich, Marry me!" your wife arrives. - "That's restriction for entering new markets"

The Most Honest Scammer Funny

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